Dog days

Ahhh. I always wandered why the Egyptian "Dog days" were located on the solar year at the hottest part of the year, the end of July, beginning of August...So I looked at the Ancient Egyptian dog breeds...

First thing I found out that the Ancient Egyptian loved hunting dogs. 

And that their word for "hunting dog" was "Tesem". And that it was written in hieroglyphics using the image of a prick-eared, leggy dog with a curled tail from the early Egyptian age...

There were three main types of dogs in Ancient Egypt: pariah dog (basenji), two kinds of greyhound-like dogs and a molosser-type dog....And the one shown on Tesem hieroglyph is definitely the "pariah dog" known in Egypt as basenji.

The "pariah dog" is the name given to the half wild dog species still found around the world. They are the closest we still have to the old wild dogs...And they have preserved one important characteristic of wild dogs: They have one breading season...

And guess when that breeding season starts? You guessed correctly. During dog days, end of July beginning of August, the hottest part of the year in the Northern hemisphere...Here is the page about the "pariah dogs" from Princeton "Canids of the world".

Basenji dogs are close cousins of Canaan dogs also known as Egyptian desert dogs, Bedouin Sheepdogs and Palestinian Pariah Dogs...

For the Egyptians the sight of these doggies dogging must have been a very pleasing sight indeed. Because the start of the Basenji breeding season coincided with Nile flood maximum...

I talked about this in my post "Holy cow". 

No wonder then that it is the Dog headed god Set who "defends Ra from the Serpent of Chaos Apep". The serpent is the symbol of sun's heat. And the dog days mark that maximum. After that the northern hemisphere starts cooling (the serpent is dying)...I talked about this in my post "Apep". 

Of course Set (Dog) is helped in his valiant fight against Apep (The Dragon) by Bastet (Lion, Cat). No wonder. Dog days fall in the middle of Leo...And Leo is where it is because it marks the beginning of the mating season of the Eurasian lions...I talked about this too in my post "Apep". 

And that's that...

Oh almost forgot. The time when in Ancient Egypt the Pariah dogs started getting frisky and when the Nile flood arrived, at that same time, Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, was also rising...Is his why the star was eventually, when Greeks, who called that part of the year "Dog days" arrived to Egypt, called The Dog Star? The star that rises during Dog Days? The days when Pariah dogs are mating? 

This link between this ancient dog breed, Dog Days and Dog Star seems to have once been widespread. North America, China, India, Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, Rome...Finally Egypt...I think this is a very interesting theme which requires more research and which will most likely point at the common prehistoric system of symbols and beliefs linked to the common dog breed, with common single breeding season, dog days, found in all these areas... 

If we look at the oldest known depictions of dogs, they all show Pariah dogs. 

Prehistoric rock art found in Saudi Arabia shows humans hunting with Pariah dogs on leashes. These pictures could be at least 8,000 years old, making them the earliest art depicting dogs. 

Before the discovery of this rock art from Saudi Arabia, it was was believed that the oldest depictions of dogs were the ones found on pottery shards from Tepe Sabz in Iran, which are almost 8000 years old. They depict the same Pariah dog breed... 

The domestication of dogs happened at the European edges of the Eurasian steppe. 30,000 years old dog fossils from Palaeolithic sites in Belgium, the Ukraine and Russia are the earliest proof we have of canids which are different from wolves...

The earliest proof of dogs actually being part of human society are the remains of a dog found buried with two humans, dating back 14,700 years, in Germany... 

So, it seems that the dogs spread throughout the world from Europe. And because domesticated dogs stay with humans, they must have spread with the humans who originally domesticated them...Which haplogroup was responsible for the dog diffusion? Was that dog the Pariah dog? Did Pariah dog always have a single mating season which started at the same time (July-August)? And is it during this expansion of the Mesolithic-Neolithic hunters and their Pariah dogs, that the link between the mating period of Pariah dogs (Dog Days) and the Dog Star - Sirius was forged in all these places around the world? 

Jörmungandr

The other day I came across this pendant on one of the auction sites with the description: "Medieval Period - Viking Pendant Depicting Coiled Sea Serpent - Jörmungandr". Lot closed. 145$...

In Norse mythology, Jörmungandr is a giant serpent whom Odin tossed into the great ocean that encircles Midgard.  The serpent is so large that it is able to surround the earth and grasp its own tail, receiving the name "World Serpent". It's arch-enemy is the thunder-god Thor...

The stories about Thor's encounters with this serpent are very interesting. They are full of symbols whose meaning, by the time the stories were recorded, was almost completely forgotten...Uncovering the meaning of these symbols will show us the true identity of Jörmungandr...

Before I analyse the only two preserved Norse stories about the encounters between Jörmungandr and Thor, I will first just quickly remind you all of the main thing Thor (as the thunder god) has to do in Indoeuropean mythology: he has to kill the dragon (Serpent)...

The identity of this Dragon (Serpent) can be deduced from, for instance, the Slavic myth about Perun, Thunder god, killing Veles, Great Serpent, who stole Perun's cattle (clouds). Perun kills Veles, releases his cattle (clouds), and rains return...

Snake is in Slavic mythology directly linked with the sun. It is the symbol of sun's heat. The symbol of summer. The snakes are in the underworld during the winter and are in our wold during the spring, summer autumn, when sun dominates the Sun-Earth system...

In the spring, sun's heat is a positive force which creates life. But as summer progresses, the heat gets stronger and stronger. And by the end of the summer, sun's heat becomes a negative force which destroys life. And so the snake grows into the Great Snake, The Dragon...

The dragon that has to be killed, or his fiery breath will turn everything into cinder. Ta-Dah!!! Enters The Thunder god of your choice, battle ensues...and the dragon dies...The drought ends, the rains return, the world is saved (again)...

In Slavic mythology, Thunder god Perun kills Great Snake Veles on Perun's day, 2nd of August, the day that marks the end of Summer, and beginning of Autumn. This day falls in the middle of Leo zodiac sign, when sun is the hottest...I talked about this in my post "Thundering sun god"...

So, Great Serpent, Dragon (Draught) dies in Leo :) Or to say it another way, Lion kills Serpent. This Romanesque object depicts Lion killing Snake under the head of Helios. Perun's day is in Serbia also the day of St Elijah, Christianised Helios...I talked about it in my post "Lion killing snake"...

Ok, back to Thor and Jörmungandr. This is one of only two preserved stories about the encounters between the Thunder god and the Great Serpent...You'll love it...

The part "the serpent disguised by magic in the form of a magic colossal cat" would make no sense at all, if we didn't know that in Slavic mythology, the Thunder God fights and kills the Great Serpent in the middle of Leo...

Now all of a sudden it all makes perfect sense...Including the fact that Thor can't lift the Great Serpent disguised as a Great Cat. One other story, from Egypt, can also be decoded using the same symbol dictionary: The story of Apep, Great Chaos Serpent...I talked about this in detail in my post "Apep"...

Guess what. Apep is killed by Ra (Sun) in a form of a Cat (Leo)...When the Great Serpent is killed, inundation of the Nile is at it's highest level, nature is saved, hence the tree behind the snake...

Of course this whole thing doesn't make much sense in far north, where there is little chance of sun causing draughts...

Jörmungandr and Thor meet again when Thor goes fishing with the giant Hymir. Hymir is a very interesting giant indeed. He is the father of the god Týr, whom Romans identified as Aries, the god of War...

Now in Slavic mythology, god Jarilo, is the Young Sun God, who was in Greek Mythology personified by Apollo, who replaced Helios, the old Titan (Giant) Sun God...

The root of the name Jarilo is "jar" which can mean both "green, young" and "raging heat, raging anger". Jarilo is symbol of male (and Sun) energy, which can be both creative and distructive...It is suspicious how close Jarilo is to Ares, the god of rage (jara)...

So is Giant Hymir, the father of Týr (Ares, Jarilo) actually Titan Helios? After all Perun kills The Great Serpent on the day of Helios, the hottest day in the northern hemisphere...And here in this story Thor kills Jörmungandr while fishing with Hymir (father of Ares)...

This story is great. The part: "Hymir refuses to provide Thor with bait, Thor strikes the head off Hymir's largest ox to use as his bait" makes no sense unless we know that Summer which is ruled by The Great Serpent, starts in Taurus, Bull...

In Slavic mythology, Perun kills the Great Serpent at the end of summer. At the end of the season whose symbol is The bull...So Bull also dies on Perun's day...I talked about this in my post "Symbols of the seasons"...

That there is a direct link between bull and dragon can be seen from some legends preserved in the Balkans, in which young girls were sacrificed to the Giant Bull rather than to the Dragon...I talked about this in my post "Water bull"...

So Thor kills the bull to kill the Dragon...This is the Altuna Runestone showing Thor fishing for three headed dragon using a bull head...With his hammer on the ready to strike the final blow...

What is interesting is that in the Balkans, the day of Perun, the day of Helios, is the day when people organise Bull fights. I talked about this in my post "Alidjun"...

This is also the day when bulls are ceremonially slaughtered, roasted and eaten...Historical sources tell us that Slavs sacrificed bulls to Perun...So these bull fights were originally probably a ritual in which the best bull was chosen to be sacrificed to Perun...

I talked about ritual slaughtering of Bulls in Slavic culture, and the meaning of this ritual, in my  post "Bull of Grom Div"...

But it wasn't just Slavs who sacrificed bulls, symbol of summer which starts in Taurus, at the end of summer...The Old Gaels (The Irish) did it too. I talked about this in my post "Bull of Crom Dubh"...

So what are we to make of all this? Well, well done Thor, you are truly Indoeuropean Thunder god now. You killed your Great Serpent, Dragon...But why is it that this Norse legend can be explained through Slavic folk tradition, but not through Norse folk tradition? Or can it be?

Also, as I already said, the story makes no sense in the far north. In the far north the Thunder god has no need to kill the heat of the summer. The opposite is the case...In the far north you want sun to be hot and the summer to last as long as possible...

There is one more thing that can be decoded once we know what does the cat represent. Why is Freya riding around in chariots pulled by cats...She is just another representation of Virgo, the feminine, yin, earth influence which becomes ever stronger from the middle of Leo...

I talked about this ubiquitous Lion Lady in my post "Assumption of Mary"...

One other thing. Why is The Great Serpent Jörmungandr biting its tail? Enters Ouroboros. This symbol of the serpent biting its tail was first seen in Egypt. There it is linked to deity Mehen, who in other funerary texts protects Ra in his underworld journey...

Ra spends every night in cold watery underworld. In order to emerge bright and shining in the morning, Ra's fire, his heat, needs to be preserved. By coiled snake... Symbol of sun's heat in Slavic mythology...

Ra's heat also needs to be preserved during the winter. According to the 4th-century AD Latin commentator Servius who was aware of the Egyptian use of the Ouroboros symbol, the image of a snake biting its tail represented the cyclical nature of the year...Solar wheel...

That Ouroboros did represent the solar year, the ever turning (changing) life creating solar wheel, can be seen from Gnostic Pistis Sophia (c. 400 AD), which describes the ouroboros, the soul of the world, as a twelve-part dragon, surrounding the world with its tail in its mouth

In my post "Yin and Yang", I talked about this ever changing, life producing interplay between the Earth and the Sun...

One thing that most people don't know, is that the Yin-Yang symbol is spinning and ever changing. The Great serpent, the Sun, The Yang, is constantly oscillating between its minimum (in the middle of maximum Yin) to it's maximum (where we find minimum Yin in the middle of it)...

This is what "Serpent biting it's tail means". Dragon, The Great Serpent doesn't get killed by Thor or Perun or any other Thunder god. It kills (eats) itself. Spring-Summer-Autumn-Winter-Spring...The ever spinning Ouroboros, the solar wheel...

And this is why the end of the world will come when Jörmungandr spits its tail...Because that means that the Earth-Sun system has gone out of balance. The heat will either increase so much that the world will burn, or will decrease so much that the world will freeze...

I love Jörmungandr...

Apep

Today I would like to talk about snakes. And the sun. 

Apep or Apophis was the ancient Egyptian deity who embodied chaos. He was viewed as the greatest enemy of the solar deity Ra who as the bringer of light was seen as the upholder of order. This is why he was given the title Enemy of Ra.

Apep was seen as a giant snake or serpent leading to such titles as the Evil Dragon. Some elaborations said that he had a head made of flint.

The few descriptions of Apep's origin in myth usually demonstrate that it was born after Ra, usually from his umbilical cord. Combined with its absence from Egyptian creation myths, this has been interpreted as suggesting that Apep was not a primordial force in Egyptian theology, but a consequence of Ra's birth.

In his battles, Apep was thought to use a magical gaze to hypnotise Ra and his entourage, attempting to devour them whilst choking the river on which they travelled through the underworld with his coils.

But god Set, who always accompanied Ra on Atet (Solar barge) defended Ra and killed Apep with his spear.

The god Set was usually depicted as a man with a head resembling that of the sha, Set animal.

In ancient Egyptian art, the Set animal is usually depicted as a slender canid, resembling a greyhound or a jackal, usually with a long, slightly curved nose, and erect ears, squared at the tops, and a forked tail.

Set was often depicted carrying the so called "was" (Egyptian wꜣs "power, dominion") sceptre. It appears as a stylized animal head at the top of a long, straight staff with a forked end. Basically it was a stylised Set animal.

In one account, Ra himself defeats Apep in the form of a cat.

Egyptian believed that thunderstorms and earthquakes were caused by Apep managing to temporarily overwhelm Ra. They also believed that solar eclipses were caused by Apep managing to swallow Ra during the day. However Ra's defenders would quickly cut Apep's belly open and free Ra out, ending the eclipse within a few minutes.

Comparable hostile snakes as enemies of the sun god existed under other names (in the Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts) already before the name Apep occurred. The etymology of his name ('pp) is perhaps to be sought in some west-semitic language where a word root "pp meaning 'to slither' existed. A verb root 'pp does at any rate not exist elsewhere in Ancient Egyptian.

Soooo. That's the story of Apep. How are we to understand all this?

Maybe this will help:

In Slavic languages the word for dragon "zmaj" is the masculine form of the word for snake "zmija". In Slavic mythology dragon is believed to be an "old male snake"... 

Snake is in Slavic mythology described as "the enemy"of the sun. As the protector of the sun, who saves the sun from the snake, we often find swallow. In Serbia people believe that swallow saved the sun when snake tried to swallow it. In Bosnia people believe that the swallow hid one quarter of the sun under it's wing, to protect it from the snake. In Dalmatia people believe that once there were three or four suns in the sky and that the snake ate all but one, which swallow hid under its wing. Two "blind suns" which can sometimes be seen in the sky together with our normal sun are the ones which the snake ate. The one that heats us is the one that the swallow hid under its wing. There is also a story that once there were 9 rays on the sun, but that snake ate (sucked, drank) all but one. In Montenegro people believe that a huge dragon once sucked in two out of three suns which once existed. In Bulgaria people say that once snake bit the sun in the eyes when it bent down to drink water. Another version of this story says that the sun used to have two or more eyes, but that the snake "sucked" them all out.

Bulgarians believe that the sun celebrates the killing of snakes. because the snake sucked in one of sun's eyes. In Montenegro people say that every time a snake is killed, the sun happily exclaims "A dragon was killed".

Bulgarians believe that snakes eyes have magic affect on the sun. They say that the sun can't set unless the snake looks at it. In Poland people say that the sun would stop shining if the snake looked at it. This is because the snake's eyes can suck all sun's strength out. In Bosnia people believe that snake gets more poisonous if it often looks at the sun. The most poisonous are the snakes that look at the sun for nine days. God forbade snakes to look at the sun longer than nine days a year. A lot less poisonous are the snakes which look at the sun only six days a year. And even less poisonous are the ones which only look at the sun for three days a year.

In Belarus people believe that snakes, while lying outside and sunbathing, actually sucking the sun's strength out, and that this is why the sun gets smaller and smaller as the summer progresses. The sun replenishes it's strength during the winter when snakes are under the ground. This is why one should always kill a snake, or they will multiply so much that they will completely destroy the sun. The dead snake should be buried or hid in the deep shade so that sun doesn't see it. If the snake is not buried the sun will start to shine weakly and will start hiding behind the clouds, because it can't look at it's dead earthly enemy. The sun won't shine on a man who doesn't kill a snake for three days. People in Ukraine also believe that a dead snake should be hidden in a shade or buried so that it doesn't harm the sun in some way. Polish people believe that a dead snake should always be buried so that the sun can't see it. If the sun sees a dead snake it might get extinguished. Also if the sun sees a dead snake it will get sick and turn red. The sun will get sick and start crying, because the snake is poisonous. The setting sun is red if it had seen a dead snake which wasn't buried. If a live snake comes out of its hole to sunbath, the sun will get sick and get pale. In Pomerania people believe that snakes actually don't like looking at the sun. If a snake is lying still, staring at the sun, has gone mad.

There is also a belief, which is found in all Slavic countries from Baltic to Balkans, that if you kill a snake, it will twitch and jump around, even if you chop it in bits, until the sun sets.

In Bulgaria people believe that the snake bite wound should be exposed to the sun. In Poland people believe that the person who was bitten by a snake should be outside, in the sun, or he will get sick.

People in Ukraine and Poland believe that snakes once had wings and flew in the sky. But the sun burned their wings and they fell on the ground. There is a Polish legend that says that the solar eclipse happens because a dragon covers the sun with its body. There is also a Polish fairytale which says that it is a twelve headed snake which causes solar eclipse. Ukrainians have a legend about a dragon which feeds on the sun, which is why the sun gets smaller and weaker as the year progresses. The motif of a dragon swallowing the sun can be found in all Slavic countries.

How should we understand all this? 

And why there are so many similarities between the Slavic and Egyptian stories about the sun and the snake?

The snake and the sun are intrinsically connected. 

Snakes come out of the underground when the air and soil get warm enough. They stay outside during the late spring, summer and early autumn and during that that time they are visible to people. 

This is why snake is the symbol of the sun's heat.  

In Egyptian mythology we find snakes wrapped around the sun disk on the head of the young Sun god Horus.

They are all around Amun-Ra

They have wings to symbolised their link with the supreme deity Ra 

And are called "the Uraei of goodness". You can read a lot more about the snakes in Egyptian mythology in the great book "The Serpent Myths of Ancient Egypt". 

But let me continue with the analysis of the snake-sun symbolic relationship based on Slavic mythology and see how it fits with the Egyptian one. 

The sun's heat is "young" week and beneficial at the end of spring, just before the summer starts. This is the good snake. The sun's heat is "old" strong and destructive at the end of summer, just before the autumn starts. This is the bad snake. Dragon, a heavenly being that breaths fire, the great old male snake, represents the burning heat of the Late Summer, Early Autumn, the "old sun", the sun which is threatening to turn everything into cinder. 

In Slavic Pre-Christian religion this dragon was Veles, the great horned snake, who "Stole heavenly cows from Perun". Basically he is the late summer heat which dries the land and the sky and causes draughts. You can read more about this in my post "Lion killing Snake" and my post "Two crosses".

Just enough sun is beneficial but too much sun is destructive. 
Just enough sun makes grain grow and creates order, but too much sun makes grain wither and burn and creates chaos. 

This is why Apep, the great snake, the dragon, the destructive sun, the creator of chaos is the enemy of Ra, the beneficial sun, the creator of Order. 

The great snake, the dragon, Apep, is the sun, is Ra in its destructive manifestation. This is why Apep is "a consequence of Ra".

The sun's heat increases all the way through the summer until we reach the hottest point of the summer, the 2nd of August. This point marks the end of the summer and the beginning of autumn, the end of the heating and the beginning of the cooling of the northern hemisphere. I talked about this in my post "Two crosses".

At that precise moment, The Great Snake, The Dragon, Veles (the summer heat) gets killed by Perun (autumn thunderstorms) whose weapon is lightning (spear). This day is celebrated in Serbia as Perun day. 

But the thing is, Perun and Veles are one and the same. This can be seen from the fact that on the 2nd of August (the end of summer beginning of autumn), the day when Serbs celebrate Perun's victory over Veles, Serbs celebrate the day of St Elijah the thunderer. St Elijah is the burning sun of the late summer, Helios. 

This is Helios

This is Elijah

Every year on his day he is about to burn the world to cinder. But he never does. Because  St Elijah is also the thunderer, the one who makes lightning and the one who rides on storm clouds. Which arrive right on time, to cool the earth down. You can read more about this in my post "Thundering sun god".

This what is represented by Set killing Apep. The sun Ra, its protector Set and sun's enemy Apep are one and the same...

Set scores a small victory over Apep every day when the evening kills the heat of the day. 

Set scores the big victory over Apep on the 2nd of August (the end of summer beginning of autumn) when he kills the heat of the summer and when the northern hemisphere starts cooling.

The 2nd of August,  (the end of summer beginning of autumn) falls in the middle of the zodiac sign Leo. This is why Ra kills Apep as great cat (Lion). 

This is also why we find the depiction of a lion headed deity (probably Pakhet or Pasht) killing great snake, dragon, on the above Set killing Apep scene.

Here is another depiction of Pakhet holding in one hand was staff (Set animal used to defeat Apep) and in the other hand two snakes. 

Interestingly, in Serbian mythology, St Elijah doesn't burn the world down, because every year, in the middle of Leo, during the Dog days, he gets "calmed down" by his wife "Ognjena Marija" (Fiery Mary). 

I wrote about this in my post Ognjena Marija. 

I talked about the symbolism of the "Lion killing snake" image in my post Lion killing snake. 

The 2nd of August, (the end of summer beginning of autumn), the hottest part of the year, the time when the great snake, the dragon is killed is known as Dog days. This is when Dog Star Sirius, rises before sun in the sky. Which is very interesting considering that Set, the Egyptian dragon slayer, the god of storms, is a dog faced deity...Knowing this, I wonder if the Set animal (dog really) has a forked tail because it is itself the "animal that ends the great snake, the dragon"???

Medieval standing stone from Ubusko, Hercegovina depicting dog fighting snake.

Just after the dog days and the slaughter of the great snake which choked the "river on which Ra's barge sailed", the Nile flooding reaches its highest level. This is still celebrated by Egyptians as an annual holiday for two weeks starting August 15, known as Wafaa El-Nil. 


The Nile always followed the same water rise and fall pattern. First indications of the rise of the river could be seen at the first of the cataracts of the Nile (at Aswan) as early as the beginning of June, and a steady increase went on until the middle of July, when the increase of water became very great. 

This is the beginning of Leo. 

The Nile continued to rise until the beginning of September, when the level remained stationary for a period of about three weeks, sometimes a little less. 

This is the end of Leo.

In October it often rose again, and reached its highest level. From this period it began to subside, and usually sank steadily until the month of June when it reached its lowest level, again.

Here is the The god Nilus or Hapimou encircled by the serpent...

From the dead dragon water, vegetation and life burst out...

What do you think about all this?