The Hounds of Hel

Today we're going to be looking at several different mythologies: Egyptian, Greek/Roman, and Norse. All of these mythologies have their similarities, but the one I'm focusing on today is their portrayal of dogs. All of these cultures have myths associating dogs with the afterlife. In particular, all of them have named dogs who serve as guardians to the afterlife.

Ready? Let's get started.

The Egyptians worshiped a deity named Anubis.  Anubis has the body of a man and a canine head. The Egyptians often associated Anubis with graveyards. Although he is sometimes depicted as escorting dead souls to the afterlife, the deity's role is primarily that of a gatekeeper and judge. The Egyptian afterlife, ruled over by Osiris, is guarded by Anubis. To enter into the afterlife, a person's heart was placed on a scale opposite the feather of truth.

 

 

If the scales balanced out, or the heart was lighter, Anubis judged them worthy and allowed them into the afterlife. If the heart was heavier, however...well, then the person was unworthy. They were tossed aside to be devoured by a sort of hippo-crocodile-lion thing (it's as unpleasant as it sounds).

Let's change cultures, shall we?

Perhaps the best known Hound of Hel is the Greek Cerberus. Frequently depicted with three heads (though sometimes with only two), Cerberus is the fearsome hound who guards the entrance to the Greek afterlife. His master is Hades.

 

 

Cerberus prevents the living from entering or exiting the underworld, but there are a few times where he has failed in this task. Hercules himself bested Cerberus, and was therefore allowed to leave the underworld. Music is as effective on the hound as brawn, however. The great poet Orpheus was able to enter the underworld in search of his dead wife by playing his harp, lulling Cerberus into letting him pass.

 

(Three headed dog? Harp? Can't imagine why that sounds familiar!)

 

The Romans also included Cerberus in their myths, one of a few characters whose names did not change. Roman mythology adds another person to the list of those who have made it past the guard dog of the underworld: Aeneas. In this story by Virgil, Cerberus is bested not with strength or with music, but with treats. Every dog likes a good treat, right? Turns out a barley cake soaked in mead is the way to this giant puppy's heart.
 

So Egyptian, Greek, and Roman mythologies all have dogs who guard the gates of the underworld. This could be explained by the proximities of the cultures to one another. After all, all three mythologies share quite a few similarities. But the Norse culture is pretty far from the Mediterranean. Because of this, I find it fascinating that they have:

Garm!

 

Garm is the guardian of Hel, the Norse underworld for those who did not die a valiant death. His mistress is Hel herself. Garm is described as a fearsome hound whose fur is coated in blood. When Ragnarok comes, Garm will do battle with Tyr, and both will die in battle.

Most interesting to me is the fact that Garm can be calmed...by being given a piece of bread. Sounds pretty similar to the Roman take on Cerberus! Dogs and their treats, right?

What do you guys think? Know of any other cultures that have dogs connected to the underworld?

Demeter, Persephone, and Hades

Hey guys! I hope everyone had a lovely weekend. I for one did! I got to go to Phoenix Comicon and meet two of my favorite actors - Jason Momoa and Karl Urban.  There were a ton of awesome costumes and vendors.  I'm definitely planning on returning next year!

(Me killing Sauron.  Definitely a highlight of the con!)

While I was gone, this blog got views from its 20th country! Thanks, Taiwan! That was wonderful to come home to.

I’m here today to talk a little bit more about Greek mythology. I was looking back through my Greek posts and I wound up re-reading the one I did for Hades. I was so busy defending his character that I actually didn’t fully go into the myth involving Persephone! Luckily, I was already planning on talking about Demeter today - it was easy to add Persephone’s story to hers, since the two are definitely intertwined. Of course, I can’t tell their story without also talking about Hades.

So, to begin with: This is Demeter.

Demeter is the Greek goddess of the harvest. A night spent with Zeus (who is king of the gods, and Demeter’s brother...creepy, I know) produced a daughter named Persephone.

This is Persephone.

Persephone followed in the footsteps of her mother. She’s the goddess of spring and vegetation, amongst other things.

Both of these goddesses are beautiful. They’re associated with flowers, plants, and any form of crop. (I actually just realized that Demeter is basically my arch nemesis - I’m gluten intolerant, and she’s the goddess of grain! WHY, Demeter? WHY?!) The goddesses are often depicted as holding these things, and are normally shown in daylight.

This is Hades.

Hades is the Greek god of the Underworld. He rules over the dead, and he seldom leaves his kingdom - which is dark, often considered depressing, and definitely not full of beautiful growing things.

Thanks to Zeus, these three characters end up wrapped up in a tale of drama. Ready for it? Let’s get started, then!

As usual, all of the problems began with Zeus. Being the father of Persephone, Zeus had the right to determine who she would marry. The king of the gods chose to betroth her to his brother, Hades. This was all very well and good - except that Zeus failed to mention Persephone’s betrothal to Persephone or Demeter!

Because of this, Persephone was taken unaware when Hades came to claim her. She was out picking flowers when he pulled up on his chariot, grabbed her, and dragged her down to the Underworld.

(As I mentioned in my Hades post - not an uncommon practice in those times, despite the bad rap it gets him nowadays.)

Demeter was frantic at her daughter’s disappearance. She searched the entire earth for Persephone, but ultimately found no sign of her. One place that she searched was the region of Eleusis. Demeter stayed in the home of the king for some time, disguised as an old servant. In gratitude for his hospitality, she sought to make the king’s son immortal. Unfortunately, this process required bathing him in ambrosia and then holding him over the fire. The queen walked in during this process and screamed, interrupting the ceremony. (Imagine seeing a crazy old lady smiling and cooing as she holds your baby over an open fire. I’d probably have screamed too!)

Despite being unable to carry out her original plan, Demeter still took care of Eleusis. She taught its people how to plant and harvest grain before she left.

Interestingly enough, the story of Demeter at Eleusis sparked a mystery religion. Mystery religions in ancient Greece differed from the normal belief in the gods. Typical prayers were accompanied by a sacrifice, and the supplicant expected to get immediate results from their prayer. Crops need water? Pray to Zeus and it will rain! Looking for love (in all the wrong places)? Call upon Aphrodite and you’ll find it! Prayers focused on immediate gain, and didn’t give a lot of thought to what would happen in the next life.

Mystery religions were quite different. Instead of promising a gain in the mortal life, they offered a better afterlife. Demeter’s mystery religion was called the Eleusinian Mysteries, and it wasn’t the only mystery religion in ancient Greece. Another revolved around Isis, an Egyptian goddess. Interestingly enough, both goddesses have myths in which they bring people back from the Underworld - this likely was the reason people thought they could better the afterlife.

Anyway, back to the main myth!

While Demeter was searching for her daughter, Persephone was languishing in the Underworld. She refused to eat or drink anything, and longed for living things. Poor Hades tried his best, but his wife just wasn’t interested in him.

Eventually the other gods began to take notice - largely because of humanity. With the goddess of spring trapped in the Underworld, and Demeter focused only on her search for Persephone, plants began to die.  Eventually all the crops failed, and the world was plunged into an endless winter. Unable to find Persephone, Demeter mourned for the loss of her daughter. It didn’t matter to her if the world died - hers already had.

Depending on which version of the story you read, a god or goddess associated with the sun or moon sometimes tells Demeter that Persephone was taken by Hades. This leads her to confront Zeus. In other versions, Zeus himself steps in and speaks to Demeter, pleading with her to stop the endless winter. Without crops, the mortals have no food; without food, they will die; without mortals, who will worship the gods? (Yeah, Zeus is pretty self-centered.)

Either way, Demeter is pissed off when she finds out that Zeus gave Persephone to Hades without telling her. She refuses to allow plants to grow so long as her daughter remains in the Underworld. Try as he might, Zeus can’t get her to change his mind. Eventually he caves in and sends Hermes to the Underworld to bargain with Hades.

Now, imagine you’re a lonely guy. You live alone, and no one (living) ever comes to see you. You’re an introvert, so you never leave your house. Then, one day, your brother comes to see you! He tells you that he’s found this really pretty girl, and that she’s going to be your wife. Imagine she comes and the two of you get married, and you’re living together, and she’s kind of sad but at least you’re not alone anymore.

Then imagine that your brother sends someone (he can’t even come to tell you himself, the jerk) to tell you that the girl’s mom is really mad and wants her back. And your brother - who technically is your boss as well - wants you to give up your wife.

I’ve mentioned in my post about Hades that I think he’s a pretty swell guy. He doesn’t argue, like I would. He doesn’t say no. Imagine if he did - Zeus probably couldn’t change his mind, and Hades is just as powerful as Zeus. What does he care if everyone on the earth is going to die? That just means Hades will get more subjects and become more powerful! But, no. He’s too good of a guy. He doesn’t want the power. Instead, Hades says that he’ll give up Persephone on one condition: she can’t have eaten anything in the Underworld.

(This is actually a pretty common condition in mythology. Eating or drinking food in the Underworld often ties you to that realm, so it’s something you don’t want to do. Japanese mythology warns of it, as does Mesopotamian. Similar instructions apply to the land of the fae in Celtic mythology.)

Unfortunately for Persephone, she had eventually caved in and eaten a few seeds from a pomegranate. Depending on the myth, she did this in secret hoping that Hades wouldn’t notice; or, Hades gave her the pomegranate and tricked her into eating the seeds.

I’m more inclined to believe the former, given that poor Persephone must have been starving from months without food, but hey.  That picture was just too adorable to not post it.

Despite Persephone not meeting Hades' condition for release, he still lets her go. It isn’t a permanent release, however. Persephone is required to return for a few months each year; these months match the number of pomegranate seeds she ate.

During the months when Persephone is on earth, the plants grow and the flowers bloom. Spring, summer, and fall happen as normal thanks to Persephone’s reunion with Demeter. However, each year when Persephone returns to the Underworld Demeter mourns her loss. The plants die, and winter overtakes the world.

I hope you enjoyed the story! I love the myth, and I loved the pictures I was able to find for it. I feel bad for everyone within the myth, though; Hades gets all the blame and only has a wife for a few months out of the year, Demeter is miserable and has to go through her child being kidnapped, and Persephone is kidnapped and held against her will! Seriously, people! All of that could have been avoided if Zeus had just told his daughter and Demeter about her engagement! Or, you know, if he had actually confessed once Persephone went missing! But no, the king of the gods had to let Demeter wander around in grief for months before saying anything - and then it was only for his own selfish reasons.

You might notice that I really dislike Zeus.

I’m planning on doing a post about Norse mythology next week, but after that I'm open to suggestions. Got a myth you’d like to see (or a fairy tale?)? Let me know in a comment below, or hit me up in an email! Same goes for any questions or comments on this post.

I’ll see you guys next week!

Hades: Duty Amidst Debauchery

The Greek pantheon is almost always depicted in some form of debauchery. This makes sense: Hermes is the god of thieves, Ares the god of bloody combat, Dionysus the god of wine. On the female side is Aphrodite, goddess of sex. It’s to be expected that the pantheon would indulge in these things, given that their members embodied them.

Hades does not participate in the revelries of the other gods.

It always amused me that Disney chose Hades to be the villain of Hercules - I think that’s part of why I never liked the movie. In my opinion, Hades is the best of the gods. He is just, dutiful, and faithful - three things which can rarely be said of the rest of the pantheon.

Hades gets a bad rap for two reasons. First of all, he’s the god of death. This is hardly ever a popular thing to be the god of, despite the fact that everyone will eventually become his subject. However, the Greek afterlife was not a horrible place - at least not for everyone.

To start with, Hades was made ruler of the Underworld by chance. After the Greek pantheon overthrew the Titans, who had ruled before them, the three godly brothers drew lots to determine who would rule where. Zeus drew the sky, Poseidon the ocean, and Hades the Underworld. Instead of complaining, Hades took his lumps and went to rule over the dead, seldom leaving his realm.

The Greek Underworld was divided into three main sections. The dead were presided over by three judges, who ruled on which section of the Underworld the dead would be sent to. Those who had committed truly evil acts were sent to Tartarus, where they would be punished according to the crimes they had committed while alive. Those who had not done evil, but also had not done great good, wandered the Fields of Asphodel for all eternity. These Fields were a place of mundane existence where the dead just sort of wander around. The dead drank from a river that made them forget their past lives before being sent to the Asphodel Fields. The last major place in the Underworld was Elysium, where those who had done heroic acts in life went to party their afterlife away.

So you see that the Underworld Hades ruled was not a terrible place. What you did in life was what you got in death. It was a fair system; the judges gave you what you deserved.

The second reason for people’s dislike of Hades involves his betrothal to Persephone. In most of the more modern depictions of this event, the story is called “The Rape of Persephone.”

Now, of course such a name would lead to negative responses! The word rape carries hugely negative connotations, and rightly so. However, the event with Persephone was misnamed. Let me explain.

In my post about Zeus, I mentioned that he slept with the goddess Demeter. This union produced Persephone. Zeus later promised to give Persephone to Hades as his wife. However, Zeus did not see fit to mention this to either Demeter or Persephone - so the daughter of Zeus was unprepared when Hades came to claim his bride.

One of the most famous pictures of this event - again titled “The Rape of Persephone” - depicts Hades hauling Persephone off in his chariot against her will. Nowadays such a thing seems terrible and wrong. However, this was a common way to take a bride in ancient cultures.

One of the best examples of this is Rome (if you don’t mind my stepping away from Greece for a moment). When Rome was first built, there were very few women in the city. Rome attempted to make marriage arrangements with its neighbors, notably the Sabines. When this failed, Roman men kidnapped the Sabine women and made them their wives. (If you’ve seen Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, this event was the basis of the song “Sobbin’ Women”.) The kidnapping of the Sabine women is called the “Rape of the Sabine Women” - because the Romans used the same word for “rape” as they did for “abduction”. Early translators simply used the wrong form of the word.

I hope you can see that Hades’ abduction of Persephone was not such a terrible thing in olden times. Her father had betrothed her to Hades, and taking a woman back to your home was a common marriage practice, even if it was against her will. Women didn’t have much say in anything back then. The fault in the matter actually lies with Zeus for not having informed Persephone and her mother of her betrothal to Hades.

Once the issues of Persephone’s abduction and being god of the dead have been set aside, Hades doesn’t seem like such a bad guy. He remains faithful to Persephone despite her loathing of him, and makes peace with Demeter for taking her daughter (even though it was Zeus’ fault). He does his job fairly, and is not unkind - even allowing the mortal Orpheus a chance to bring his wife back from the dead. Hades does not get drunk, does not sleep around, and does not participate in wild parties like the rest of the gods do. In short, he’s a decent guy.

Perhaps the reason the Greeks didn’t talk more about Hades was because they thought he was boring compared to the rest of the pantheon!

I hope I’ve given a decent defense of Hades’ character - maybe even made you like him. If you agree, disagree, or want to chime in about anything else, hit me up below or through email!

I’ll see you guys next post - make sure and keep an eye on your valuables as we talk about the god of thieves!