CHAPTER VI.

THE DOG.

SUMMARY.

Why the myth of the dog is difficult of interpretation.--_Entre chien et loup._--The dog and the moon.--The bitch Saramâ; her double aspect in the Vedâs and in the _Râmâyanam_; messenger, consoler, and infernal being.--The dog and the purple; the dog and the meat; the dog and its shadow; the fearless hero and his shadow; the black monster; the fear of Indras.--The two Vedic dogs; Sârameyas and Hermês.--The favourite dog of Saramâ; the dog that steals during the sacrifice; the form of a dog to expiate crimes committed in former states of existence; relative Hindoo, Pythagorean and Christian beliefs.--The dog Yamas.--The dog demon that barks, with the long bitter tongue.--The red bitch towards morning a beautiful maiden during the night.--The intestines of the dog eaten.--The hawk that carries honey and the sterile woman.--Dog and woodpecker.--The dog carries the bones of the witch's daughter.--The dog-messenger brings news of the hero.--The nurse-bitch.--The dog and his collar; the dog tied up; the hero becomes a dog.--The dog helps the hero.--The branch of the apple-tree opens the door.--The dog tears the devil in pieces.--The two sons of Ivan think themselves dog's sons.--The intestines of the fish given to be eaten by the bitch.--Ivan the son of the bitch, the very strong hero, goes to the infernal regions.--Dioscuri, Kerberos, funereal purifying dogs of the Persians; the penitent dog; the two dogs equivalent to the two Açvinâu.--The luminous children transformed into puppies; relative legends; the maiden whose hands have been cut off obtains golden hands; branches of trees, hands, sons born of a tree; the myth compared and explained in the Vedic hymns, with the example of Hiranyahastas; the word _vadhrimatî_.--The demoniacal dog.--The strength of the mythical dog.--Monstrous dogs.--The dog Sirius.--To swear by the dog or by the wolf.--A dog is always born among wolves.--The dog dreamed of.--Double appearance of the dog; the stories of the king of the assassins and of the magician with seven heads.--St Vitus invoked in Sicily whilst a dog is being tied up.--The dog of the shepherd behaves like a wolf among the sheep.--The dog as an instrument of chastisement; the expressions to lead the dog and the ignominious punishment of carrying the dog.--The dogs that tear in pieces; the death caused by the dog prognosticated; the dogs Sirius and Kerberos igneous and pestilential; the incendiary dog of St Dominic, the inventor of pyres for burning heretics, and the dog of the infected San Rocco.

The myth of the dog is one of those of which the interpretation is more delicate. As the common dog stays upon the doorstep of the house, so is the mythical dog generally found at the gate of the sky, morning and evening, in connection with the two Açvinâu. It was a fugitive phenomenon of but an instant's duration which determined the formation of the principal myth of the dog. When this moment is past, the myth changes its nature. I have already referred to the French expression, "entre chien et loup," as used to denote the twilight;[29] the dog precedes by one instant the evening twilight, and follows by one instant that of morning: it is, in a word, the twilight at its most luminous moment. Inasmuch as it watches at the gates of night, it is usually a funereal, infernal, and formidable animal; inasmuch as it guards the gates of day, it is generally represented as a propitious one; and as we have seen that, of the two Açvinâu, one is in especial relation with the moon, and the other with the sun, so, of the two dogs of mythology, one is especially lunar, and the other especially solar. Between these two dogs we find the bitch their mother, who, if I am not mistaken, represents now the wandering moon of heaven, the guiding moon that illumines the path of the hero and heroine, now the thunderbolt that tears the cloud, and opens up the hiding-place of the cows or waters. We have, therefore, thus far three mythical dogs. One; menacing, is found by the solar hero in the evening at the western gates of heaven; the second, the more active, helps him in the forest of night, where he is hunting, guides him in danger, and shows him the lurking-places of his enemies whilst he is in the cloud or darkness; the third, in the morning, is quiet, and found by the hero when he comes out of the gloomy region, towards the eastern sky.

Let us now examine briefly these three forms in Hindoo mythology. I have said that the mythical bitch appears to me sometimes to represent the moon, and sometimes the thunderbolt. In India, this bitch is named Saramâ, properly she who walks, who runs or flows. We are accustomed to say of the dog that it barks at the moon, which the popular proverb connects with robbers. The dog that barks at the moon,[30] is perhaps the same dog that barks to show that robbers are near. In the 108th hymn of the tenth book of the _Rigvedas_, we have a dramatic scene between the misers or thieves (the Panayas) and the bitch Saramâ, the messenger of Indras, who wishes for their treasures.[31] In order to come to them, she traverses the waters of the Rasâ (a river of hell); the treasure that is hidden in the mountain consists of cows, horses, and various riches; the Panayas wish Saramâ to stay with them as their sister, and to enjoy the cows along with them; Saramâ answers that she does not recognise their brotherhood, inasmuch as she is already the sister of Indras, and the terrible Añgirasas.[32] In the sixty-second hymn of the first book, the bitch Saramâ discovers the cows hidden in the rock, and receives in recompense from Indras and the Añgirasas nourishment for her offspring; then men cry out, and the cows bellow.[33] Going towards the sun, in the path of the sun, Saramâ finds the cows.[34] When Indras splits the mountain open, Saramâ shows him first the waters.[35] Having previously seen the fissure in the mountain, she showed the way. The first she guided rapidly, the band of the noisy ones having previously heard the noise.[36] This noise may refer either to the waters, the sounding rivers (nadâs, nadîs), or the lowing cows (gavas). Now, this bitch that discovers the hiding-places, inasmuch as she breaks through the darkness of night, seems to be the moon; inasmuch as she breaks through the cloud, she seems to be the thunderbolt. The secret of this equivoque lies in the root _sar_. In the _Rigvedas_, we have seen Saramâ disdaining to pass for the sister of the thieves or the monsters; in the _Râmâyanam_,[37] the wife of one of the monsters, of the very brother of Râvanas the robber, is called Saramâ, and takes, instead of the monster's part, that of Râmas and Sîtâ the ravished wife. We have already several times seen the moon as a beneficent cow, as a good fairy, or as the Madonna. Saramâ (of which Suramâ, another benignant rakshasî, is probably only an incorrect form[38]), the consoler of Sîtâ, who announces prophetically her approaching deliverance by her husband Râmas, appears to me in the light of another impersonation of the moon. It is on this account that Sîtâ[39] praises Saramâ as a twin-sister of hers (sahodarâ), affectionate, and capable of traversing the heavens, and penetrating into the watery infernal regions (rasâtalam).[40] The benignant sister of Sîtâ can only be another luminous being; she is the good sister whom the maiden of the Russian story, persecuted by her incestuous father, in _Afanassieff_, finds in the subterranean world, where she is consoled and assisted in escaping from the power of the witch; she is the moon. The moon is the luminous form of the gloomy sky of night, or of the funereal and infernal region; whilst its two luminous barriers in that sky, in the east and in the west, are morning and evening aurora; the luminous forms of the cloudy sky are lightning and thunderbolts. And it is from one of these luminous mythical forms that the Greeks, according to Pollux, quoted by Aldrovandi, made of the dog the inventor of purple, which the dog of Hêraklês was the first to bite. The dog of the Æsopian fable,[41] with meat in its mouth, is a variation of this myth. The red sky of evening appears purple in the morning, and in the evening as the meat that the dog lets fall into the waters of the ocean of night. In the _Pancatantram_, we have instead the lion of evening (the evening sun), who, seeing in the fountain (or in the ocean of night) another lion (now the moon, now his own shadow, the night, or the cloud), throws himself into the water to tear him to pieces, and perishes in it. The hare (the moon) is the animal which allures the famished lion of evening to perish in the waters.

The two sons of the bitch Saramâ preserve several of their mother's characteristics. Now they are spoken of together as Sârameyâu; now they are mentioned together, but distinct from one another; now one alone of them, the most legitimate, by the name of Sârameyas, whose identity with the Greek Hermês or Hermeias has already been proved by Professor Kuhn. Saramâ in connection with the Panayas, merchants or thieves, and Saramâ as the divine messenger, gives us the key to the legend of Mercury, god of thieves and merchants, and messenger of the gods.

In a Vedic hymn we find described with great clearness the two dogs that guard the gates of hell, the monsters' dwelling, or the kingdom of the dead. It prays for one departed, "that he may be able to pass safely beyond the two dogs, sons of Saramâ, having four eyes, spotted, who occupy the right path, and to come to the benignant Manes" (for there are also the malignant ones, or Durvidatrâh); these dogs are called "the very fierce guardians, who watch the road, observing men, have vast nostrils, are long-winded, and very strong, the messengers of Yamas;" they are invoked "that they may cause to enjoy the sight of the sun, and give a happy life."[42] But the _Rigvedas_ itself already shows us the two sons of the bitch Saramâ, as the two who look in turns (one after the other), whom Indras must put to sleep.[43] One, however, of the two sons of Saramâ is especially invoked and feared, the Sârameyas _par excellence_. The Vedic hymn speaks of him as he who returns (punahsaras), and represents him as "luminous, with reddish teeth, that shine like spears, in the well-rooted gums," and implores him to sleep, or "to bark only at the robber, or at the thief, not at the singers of hymns in honour of Indras."[44] The bitch Saramâ is passionately fond of her son; in recompense for her discovery of the cows of Indras, she demands nourishment for her son, which nourishment the commentator explains to be the milk of the liberated cows; the first rays of the morning sun and the last rays of the evening sun drink the milk of the dawn or silvery twilight. In the _Mahâbhâratam_,[45] the bitch Saramâ curses King Ganamegayas, because his three brothers, when attending the sacrifice, maltreated and flogged the dog Sârameyas, who had also gone there, although he had neither touched with his tongue nor desired with his eyes the oblations destined to the gods (as, on the contrary, the white dog did, who, in the sacrifice of Dion, near Athens, stole part of the victim, whence the name of Künosargês was given to that place). The same legend occurs again, slightly modified, in the seventh book of the _Râmâyanam_.[46] Râmas sends Lakshmanas, his brother, to see whether there are any disputes to be settled in the kingdom; Lakshmanas returns, saying that the whole kingdom is at peace. Râmas sends him again; he sees a dog erect on the doorstep of the palace, barking. The name of this dog is Sârameyas. Râmas enables him to enter the palace. The dog complains that he has been beaten without just cause by a Brâhman. The Brâhman is called, appears, confesses his fault, and awaits his punishment. The dog Sârameyas proposes as his punishment that the Brâhman should take a wife (the usual proverbial satire against wives), and become head of a family in the very place where he himself had supported the same dignity prior to assuming the shape of a dog. After this the dog Sârameyas, who remembers his previous states of existence, returns to do penitence at Benares, whence he had come.

Therefore the dog and the Kerberos are also a form into which the hero of the myth passes. The Hindoo and Pythagorean religious beliefs both teach that metempsychosis is a means of expiation; the curse of the offended deity is now a vengeance now a chastisement for an error that the hero or some one of his relations has committed, and which has provoked the deity's indignation.[47]

Sometimes the deity himself assumes the form of a dog in order to put the hero's virtue to the proof, as in the last book of the _Mahâbhâratam_, where the god Yamas becomes a dog, and follows Yudhishthiras (the son of Yamas), who regards him with such affection, that when invited to mount into the chariot of the gods, he refuses to do so, unless his faithful dog is allowed to accompany him.

Sometimes, however, the shape of a dog or bitch (as it is easy to pass from Yamas, the god of hell in the form of a dog, to the dog-fiend) is a real and specific form of a demon. The _Rigvedas_ speaks of the dog-demons bent upon tormenting Indras, who is requested to kill the monster in the form of an owl, a bat, a dog, a wolf, a great bird, a vulture;[48] it invokes the Açvinâu to destroy on every side the barking dogs;[49] it solicits the friends to destroy the long-tongued and avaricious dog (in the old Italian chronicle of Giov. Morelli, misers are called Cani del danaro, dogs of money), as the Bhrigavas have killed the monster Makhas.[50] And the skin of the red bitch is another monstrous form in which is dressed every morning (as the aurora in the morning sky), in the twenty-third Mongol story, the beautiful maiden who is in the power of the prince of the dragons; she (as moon) is a beautiful maiden only at night; towards day she becomes a red bitch (the moon gives up her place to the aurora); the youth who has married her wishes to burn this bitch's skin, but the maiden disappears; the sun overtakes the aurora, and he disappears with the moon. We have already seen this myth.

In the eighteenth hymn of the fourth book of the _Rigvedas_, the thirteenth strophe seems to me to contain an interesting particular. A devotee complains as follows:--"In my misery I had the intestines of the dog cooked; I found among the gods no consoler; I saw my wife sterile; the hawk brought honey to me."[51] Here we find the dog in connection with a bird.[52] In the twenty-fifth story of the fourth book of _Afanassieff_, we find the woodpecker that brings food and drink to its friend the dog, and avenges him after his death. In the forty-first story of the fourth book, the dog is killed by the old witch, because he carries in a sack the bones of her wicked daughter, who has been devoured by the head of a mare. In the twentieth story of the fifth book, we have the dog in the capacity of a messenger employed by the beautiful girl whom the serpent has married; he carries to her father a letter that she has written, and brings his answer back to her. In the legend of St Peter, the dog serves as a messenger between Peter and Simon the magician; in the legend of San Rocco, the dog of our Lord takes bread to the saint, alone and ill under a tree. The name of Cyrus's nurse, according to Textor, was Küna, whence Cyrus might have been nourished, like Asklêpios, with the milk of a dog. I have already said that the story of the dog is connected with the myth of the Açvinâu, or, what is the same thing, with that of the horse; horse and dog are considered in the light of coursers: the horse bears the hero, and the dog usually takes news of the hero to his friends, as the bitch Saramâ, the messenger of the gods, does in the _Rigvedas_.[53] The hero who assumes the shape of a horse cautions his father, when he sells him to the devil, not to give up the bridle to the buyer. In the twenty-second story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, the young man transforms himself into a dog, and lets his father sell him to a great lord, who is the devil in disguise, but tells him not to give up the collar.[54] The gentleman buys the dog for two hundred roubles, but insists upon having the collar too, calling the old man a thief upon the latter refusing to consign it into his hands. The old man, in his distraction, gives it up; the dog is thus in the power of the lord, that is, of the devil. But on the road, a hare (the moon) passes by; the gentleman lets the dog pursue it, and loses sight of it; the dog again assumes the shape of a hero, and rejoins his father. In the same story, the young man adopts, the second time, the form of a bird (we shall see the Açvinâu as swans and doves in the chapter on the swan, the goose, and the dove), and the third time that of a horse. In the twenty-eighth story of the fifth book, a horse, a dog, and an apple-tree are born of the dead bull who protects Ivan and Mary fleeing in the forest from the bear. Riding on the horse, and accompanied by the dog, Ivan goes to the chase. The first day he captures a wolf's whelp alive, and carries it home; the second day he takes a young bear; the third day he returns to the chase, and forgets the dog; then the six-headed serpent, in the shape of a handsome youth, carries off his sister, and shuts the dog up under lock and key, throwing the key into the lake. Ivan returns, and, by the advice of a fairy, he breaks a twig off the apple-tree, and strikes with it the bolt of the door which encloses the dog; the dog is thus set at liberty, and Ivan lets dog, wolf, and bear loose upon the serpent, who is torn in pieces by them, and recovers his sister. In the fiftieth story of the fifth book, the dog of a warrior-hero tears the devil, who presents himself first in the form of a bull, and then in that of a bear, to prevent the wedding of the hero taking place. In the fifty-second story of the sixth book, the dogs which Ivan Tzarevic has received from two fairies, together with a wolf's whelp, a bear's, and a lion's cub, tear the monster serpent to pieces. The two dogs carry us back to the myth of the Açvinâu. In the fifty-third story of the sixth book, the monster cuts Ivan's head off. Ivan has two sons, who believe themselves to be of canine descent; they ask their mother to be permitted to go and resuscitate their father. An old man gives them a root, which, when rubbed on Ivan's body, will bring him to life again; they take it, and use it as directed. Ivan is resuscitated, and the monster dies. Finally, in the fifty-fourth story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, we learn how the sons of the dog are born, and their mode of birth is analogous to that mentioned in the Vedic hymn. A king who has no sons has a fish with golden fins; he orders it to be cooked, and to be given to the queen to eat. The intestines of the fish (the phallos) are thrown to the bitch, the bones are gnawed by the cook, and the meat is eaten by the queen. To the bitch, the cook, and the queen a son is born at the same time. The three sons are all called Ivan, and are regarded as three brothers; but the strongest (he who accomplishes the most difficult enterprises) is Ivan the son of the bitch, who goes under ground into the kingdom of the monsters (as of the two Dioscuri, one descends into hell, like the two funereal dogs, light-coloured and white, of the Avesta, which are in perfect accordance with the Vedic _Sârameyâu_[55]). In the same story, besides the three brother-heroes, three heroic horses are brought forth by the three mares that have drunk the water in which the fish was washed before being cooked; in other European variations, and in the Russian stories themselves, therefore, we sometimes have, instead of the bitch's son, the son of the mare (or the cow). The two Açvinâu are now two horses, now two dogs, now a dog and a horse (now a bull and a lion).[56] Ivan Tzarevic, whom the horse and the dog save from danger, is the same as the Vedic hero, the sun, whom the Açvinâu save from many dangers.

In the Russian stories, as well as in the Italian ones, the witch substitutes for one, two, or three sons of the prince, who have stars on their forehead, and were born of the princess in her husband's absence, one, two, or three puppies. In these same stories, the hand of the persecuted princess is cut off. In the thirteenth story of the third book of _Afanassieff_,[57] the witch sister-in-law accuses her husband's sister of imaginary crimes in his presence. The brother cuts her hands off; she wanders into the forest; she comes out again only after the lapse of several years; a young merchant becomes enamoured of her, and marries her. During her husband's absence, she gives birth to a child whose body is all of gold, effigies of stars, moon, and sun covering it. His parents write to their son, telling him the news; but the witch sister-in-law abstracts the letter (as in the myth of Bellerophôn), and forges another, which announces, on the contrary, that a monster, half dog and half bear, is born. The husband writes back, bidding them wait until he returns to see with his own eyes his new-born son. The witch intercepts this letter also, and changes it for another, in which he orders his young wife to be sent away. The young woman, without hands, wanders about with her boy. The boy falls into a fountain; she weeps; an old man tells her to throw the stumps of her arms into the fountain; she obeys, her hands return, and she recovers her boy again. She finds her husband; and no sooner does she uncover the child in his sight, than all the room shines with light (asviatilo).

In a Servian story,[58] the father of the maiden whose hands had been cut off by the witch, her mother-in-law, causes, by means of the ashes of three burned hairs from the tail of the black stallion and that of the white mare, golden hands to grow on the maiden's arms. The apple-tree, with golden branches, which we have already mentioned, is the same as this girl who comes out of the forest (or wooden chest) with golden hands. From the branches it is easy to pass to the hands of gold, to the fair-haired son who comes out of the trunk.[59] The idea of a youth as the branch of a tree has been rendered poetical by Shakspeare, who makes the Duchess of Gloster say of the seven sons of Edward--

"Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one, Were as seven phials of his sacred blood, Or seven fair branches springing from one root."[60]

In Hindoo myths, the hand of Savitar having been cut off, one of gold is given to him, whence the epithet he enjoys of Hiranyahastas, or he who has a golden hand. But in the 116th and 117th hymns of the first book we find a more interesting datum. The branch is the hand of the tree; the branch is the son who detaches himself from the maternal trunk of the tree; the golden son is the same as the golden branch, the golden hand of the tree. The mother who obtains a golden hand is the same as the mother who has Hiranyahastas--_i.e._, Golden-hand--for her son. The Vedic hymn says that the Açvinâu gave Golden-hand as a son to the Vadhrimatî.[61] The word _vadhrimatî_ is equivocal. The Petropolitan Dictionary interprets it only as she who has a eunuch, or one who is castrated, for her husband, but the proper sense of the word is she who has something cut off, she who has, that is, the maimed arm, as in the fairy tale, for which reason she is given a golden hand. As the wife of a eunuch, the Vedic woman, therefore, receives from the Açvinâu a son with a golden hand; as having an imperfect arm, she receives only a golden hand, as in the 116th hymn of the first book, the same Açvinâu give to Viçpalâ, who had lost his own in battle, an iron leg.[62] The _Rigvedas_, therefore, already contains in its germ the very popular subject of the man or woman without hands, in same way as we have already found in it, in embryo, the legends of the lame man, the blind man or woman, the ugly and the disguised woman.

But to return to the dog. Besides his agility[63] in running, his strength holds a prominent place in the myth. The Kerberos shows an extraordinary strength in rending his enemies. In the Russian stories the dog is the hero's strength, and is associated with the wolf, the bear, and the lion. In popular stories, now terrible lions and now dreadful dogs are found guarding the gate of the monster's dwelling. The monk of San Gallo, in Du Cange, says that the "canes germanici" are so agile and ferocious, that they suffice alone to hunt tigers and lions; the same fable is repeated in Du Cange of the dogs of Albania, which are so great and fierce, "ut tauros premant et leones perimant." The enormous chained dog, painted on the left side of the entrance of Roman houses, near the porter's room; the motto _cave canem_; the expiations made in Greece and at Rome (whence the names "Canaria Hospitia" and "Porta Catularia," where a dog was immolated to appease the fury of the Canicula, and whence the verse of Ovid--

"Pro cane sidereo canis hic imponitur aræ,")

at the time of the Canicula or of the Canis Sirius, to conjure away the evils which he brings along with the summer heat, in connection with the _sol leo_, and the corresponding festival of the killing of the dog (künophontis), besides the barking dogs that appear in the groin of Scylla,[64] are all records of the mythical dog of hell. The dog, as a domestic animal, has been confounded with the savage brute which generally represents the monster. The dog is scarcely distinguishable from the wolf in the twilight. In Du Cange we read that in the Middle Ages it was the custom to swear now by the dog now by the wolf.[65] In the country round Arezzo, in Tuscany, it is believed that when a she-wolf brings forth her young ones, a dog is always found among them, which, if it were allowed to live, would exterminate all the wolves. But the she-wolf, knowing this, no sooner perceives the dog-wolf than she drowns it when she takes the wolves to drink.[66] In the district of Florence, it is believed that the wolf, as well as the dog, when it happens to be the subject of a dream, is (as in Terence) a prognostic of sickness or death, especially if the dog is dreamt of as running after or trying to bite one. In Horace (_Ad Galatheam_) it is an evil omen to meet with a pregnant bitch--

"Impios parræ præcinentis omen Ducat et proegnans canis."

In Sicily, St Vitus is prayed to that he may keep the dogs chained--

"Santu Vitu, Santu Vitu, Io tri voti vi lu dicu: Va', chiamativi a lu cani Ca mi voli muzzicari."

And when tying the dog up, they say--

"Santu Vitu, Beddu e pulitu, Anghi di cira E di ferru filatu; Pi lu nuomu di Maria Ligu stu cani Ch' aju avanti a mia."

When the dog is tied up, they add--

"Fermati, cani Ca t' aju ligatu."[67]

In Italy and Russia, when the dog howls like a wolf, that is, plays the wolf, it forebodes misfortune and death. It is also narrated,[68] that after the alliance between Cæsar, Lepidus, and Antony, dogs howled like wolves.

When one is bitten by a dog[69] in Sicily, a tuft of hair is cut off the dog and plunged into wine with a burning cinder; this wine is given to be drunk by the man who has been bitten. In _Aldrovandi_,[70] I read, on the other hand, that to cure the bite of a mad dog, it is useful to cover the wound with wolf's skin.

The dog is a medium of chastisement. Our Italian expressions, "Menare il cane per l'aia" (to lead the dog about the barn-floor), and "Dare il cane a menare" (to give the dog to be led about), are probably a reminiscence of the ignominious mediæval punishment of Germany of carrying the dog, inflicted upon a noble criminal, and which sometimes preceded his final execution.[71] The punishment of laceration by dogs, which has actually been carried out more than once by the order of earthly tyrants, has its prototype in the well-known myth of Kerberos and the avenging dogs of hell. Thus Pirithoos, who attempts to carry off Persephônê from the infernal king of the Molossians, is torn to pieces by the dog Trikerberos. Euripides, according to the popular tradition, was lacerated in the forest by the avenging dogs of Archelaos. It is told of Domitian, that when an astrologer on one occasion predicted his approaching death, he asked him whether he knew in what way he himself would die; the astrologer answered that he would be devoured by dogs (death by dogs is also predicted in a story of the _Pentamerone_); Domitian, to make the oracle false, ordered him to be killed and burned; but the wind put the flames out, and the dogs approached and devoured the corpse. Boleslaus II., king of Poland, in the legend of St Stanislaus, is torn by his own dogs while wandering in the forest, for having ordered the saint's death. The Vedic monster Çushnas, the pestilential dog Sirius of the summer skies, and the dog Kerberos of the nocturnal hell, vomit flames; they chastise the world, too, with pestilential flames; and the pagan world tries all arts, praying and conjuring, to rid itself of their baleful influences. But this dog is immortal, or rather it generates children, and returns to fill men with terror in a new, a more direct, and a more earthly form in the Christian world. It is narrated, in fact, that before the birth of St Dominic, the famous inventor of the tortures of the Holy Inquisition (a truly satanic Lucifer), his mother, being pregnant of him, dreamed that she saw a dog carrying a lighted brand about, setting the world on fire. St Dominic truly realised his mother's dream; he was really this incendiary dog; and, therefore, in the pictures that represent him, the dog is always close to him with its lighted brand. Christ is the Prometheus enlarged, purified, and idealised; and St Dominic, the monstrous Vulcan, deteriorated, diminished, and fanaticised, of the Christian Olympus. The dog, sacred in pagan antiquity to the infernal deities, was consecrated to St Dominic the incendiary, and to Rocco, the saint who protects the sick of the plague. The Roman feasts in honour of Vulcan (Volcanalia) fell in the month of August; and the Roman Catholic Church fêtes in the month of August the two saints of the dogs of the fire and the plague, St Dominic and St Rocco.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Leukophôs; a verse of Vilkelmus Brito defines it in a Latin strophe given in Du Cange--

"Tempore quo neque nox neque lux sed utrumque videtur;"

and further on--

"Interque _canem distare lupumque_."

According to Pliny and Solinus, the shadow of the hyena makes the dog dumb, _i.e._, the night disperses the twilight; the moon vanishes.

[30] The dog was sacred to the huntress Diana, whom we know to be the moon, hence the Latin proverb, "Delia nota canibus."

[31] Indrasya dûtir ishitâ carâmi maha ichantî panayo nidhîn vah; str. 2.

[32] Rasâyâ ataram payânsi; str. 2.--Ayam nidhih sarame adribudhno gobhir açvebhir vasubhir nyrishtah; str. 7.--Svasâram tvâ krinavâi mâ punar gâ apa te gavâm subhage bhagâma; str. 9.--Nâham veda bhrâtritvam no svasritvam indro vidur añgirasaç caghorâh; str. 10.

[33] Indrasyâñgirasâm ceshtâu vidat saramâ tanayâya dhâsim brihaspatir bhinad adrim vidad gâh sam usriyâbhir vâvaçanta narah; str. 3.

[34] Ritam yatî saramâ gâ avindat.--Ritasya pathâ saramâ vidad gâh; _Rigv._ v. 45, 7, 8.

[35] Apo yad adrim puruhûta dardar âvir bhuvat saramâ pûrvyam te; _Rigv._ iv. 16, 8.

[36] Vidad yadî saramâ rugnam adrer mahi pâthah pûrvyam sadhryak kah agram nayat supady aksharânâm achâ ravam prathamâ gânatî gât; _Rigv._ iii. 31, 6.

[37] vi. 9.

[38] v. 62.

[39] vi. 10.

[40] Cfr. the Vedic text above quoted.

[41] In the _Tuti-Name_, instead of the dog with the bone or piece of meat, we have the fox. The dog who sees his shadow in the water; the fearless hero who, in Tuscan stories, dies when he sees his own shadow; the black monster (the shadow) who, in numerous stories, presents himself instead of the real hero to espouse the beautiful princess, carry our thoughts back to Indras, who, in the _Rigvedas_, after having defeated the monster, flees away over the rivers, upon seeing something which is probably the shadow of Vritras, killed by him, or his own shadow. In the _Âitar. Brâhm._ iii. 2, 15, 16, 20, this flight of Indras is also recorded, and it is added, that Indras hides himself, and that the Pitaras (_i.e._, the souls of the departed) find him again. Indras thinks that he has killed Vritras, but really has not killed him; then the gods abandon him; the Marutas alone (as dogs friendly to the bitch Saramâ) remain faithful to him. The monster killed by Indras in the morning rises again at eve. According to other Vedic accounts, Indras is obliged to flee, stung by remorse, having committed a brâhmanicide.

[42] Ati drava sârameyâu çvânâu catarakshâu çabalâu sâdhunâ pathâ athâ pitrînt suvidatrân upehi--Yâu te çvânâu yama rakshitârâu caturakshâu pathirakshî nricakshasâu--Urûnasâv asutripâ udumbalâu yamasya dûtâu carato ganân anu--Tâv asmabhyam driçaye sûryâya punar dâtâm asum adyeha bhadram; _Rigv._ x. 14, 10-12.

[43] Ni shvâpaya mithûdriçâu; _Rigv._ i. 29, 3.--The Petropolitan Dictionary explains the word _mith._ by "abwechselend sichtbar."

[44] Yad arguna sarameya datah piçañga yachase vîva bhrâganta rishtaya upa srakveshu bapsato ni shu svapa; stenam râya sârameya taskaram vâ punahsara stotrîn indrasya râyasi kim asmân duchunâyase ni shu svapa; _Rigv._ vii. 55, 2, 3.

[45] i. 657, 666.

[46] Canto 62.

[47] Thus Hecuba, the wife of Priam, after having suffered cruel tribulation as a woman, in Ovid--

"Perdidit infelix hominis post omnia formam Externasque novo latratu terruit auras."

In the _Breviarium Romanum_, too, in the offices of the dead, God is besought not to consign to the beasts (ne tradas bestiis, &c.) the souls of His servants.

[48] Eta u tye patayanti çvayâtava indram dipsanti dipsavo 'dâbhyam--Ulukayâtum çuçulûkayâtum gahi çvayâtum uta kokayâtum suparnayâtum gridhrayâtum drishadeva pra mrina raksha indra; _Rigv._ vii. 104, 20, 22.

[49] Gambhayatam abhito râyatah; _Rigv._ i. 182, 4.

[50] Apa çvânam çnathishtana sakhâyo dîrghagihvyam--Apa çvânam arâdhasam hatâ makham na bhrigavah; _Rigv._ ix. 101, 1, 13.

[51] Avartyâ çuna ântrâni pece na deveshu vivide marditâram apaçyam gâyâm amahîyamânâm adhâ me çyeno madhv â gabhâra; _Rigv._ iv. 18, 13. The bird who brings honey has evidently here a phallical meaning, as also the intestine, the part that is inside of now the dog, now the fish, and now the ass (all of which are phallical symbols), desired as a delicacy by the women of fairy tales, must be equivalent to the _madhu_ brought by the bird.

[52] In the fifth story of the fourth book of the _Pentamerone_, the bird does the same that a dog does in the third story of the third book; the bird brings a knife, the dog brings a bone, and the imprisoned princess, by means of this knife and bone, is enabled to make a hole in the prison, and to free herself.

[53] In the _Pentamerone_, i. 7, the enchanted bitch brings to the princess news of the young hero.

[54] In the seventh Esthonian story, the man with the black horse binds three dogs tightly; if they get loose, no one will be able to keep them back.--In the _Edda_, Thrymer, the prince of the giants, keeps the grey dogs bound with golden chains.

[55] Einen gelblichen Hund mit vier Augen oder einen weissen mit gelben Ohren; _Vendidad_, viii. 41, _et seq._, Spiegel's version. And Anquetil, describing the _Baraschnon no schabé_, represents the purifying dog as follows:--"Le Mobed prend le bâton à neuf noeuds, entre dans les Keischs et attache la cuillère de fer au neuvième noeud. L'impur entre aussi dans les Keischs. On y amène un chien; et si c'est une femme que l'on purifie, comme elle doit être nue, c'est aussi une femme qui tient le chien. L'impur ayant la main droite sur sa tête et la gauche sur le chien, passe successivement sur les six premières pierres et s'y lave avec l'urine que lui donne le Mobed."--In the _Kâtyây. Sû._ the question is seriously discussed whether a dog, who was seen to fast on the fourteenth day of the month, did so on account of religious penitence.--Cfr. Muir's _Sanskrit Texts_, i. 365.

[56] Dog and horse, with bites and kicks, kill the monster doe and free the two brother-heroes in the _Pentamerone_, i. 9.

[57] Cfr. also the sixth of the third book.--In the second story of the third book of the _Pentamerone_, the sister herself cuts off her own hands, of which her brother, who wishes to marry her, is enamoured.--Cfr. the _Mediæval Legends of Santa Uliva_, annotated by Professor Alessandro d'Ancona, Pisa, Nistri, 1863; and the _Figlia del Re di Dacia_, illustrated by Professor Alessandro Wesselofski, Pisa, Nistri, 1866, besides the thirty-first of the stories of the Brothers Grimm.

[58] The thirty-third of the collection of Karadzik, quoted by Professor Wesselofsky in his introduction to the story of the _Figlia del Re di Dacia_.

[59] Cfr. my little essay on the _Albero di Natale_.

[60] _King Richard II._, act. i. scene 2.

[61] Çrutam tac châsur iva vadhrimat yâ hiranyahastam açvinâv adattam; _Rigv._ i. 116, 13.--Hiranyahastam açvinâ rarânâ putram narâ vadhrimatyâ adattam; i. 117, 24.--The dog in connection with a man's hand is mentioned in the Latin works of Petrarch, when speaking of Vespasian, who considered as a good omen the incident of a dog bringing a man's hand into the refectory.

[62] Sadyo gañghâm âyasîm viçpalâyai dhane hite sartave praty adhattam; str. 15.

[63] It is perhaps for this reason that the Hungarians give to their dogs names of rivers, as being runners; but it is also said that they do so from their belief that a dog which bears the name of a river or piece of water never goes mad, especially if he be a white dog, inasmuch as the Hungarians consider the red dog and the black or spotted one as diabolical shapes. In Tuscany, when a Christian's tooth is taken out, it must be hidden carefully, that the dogs may not find it and eat it; here dog and devil are assimilated.

[64] Scylla laves her groin in a fountain, the waters of which the enchantress Circe has corrupted, upon which monstrous dogs appear in her body, whence Ovid--

"Scylla venit mediaque tenus descenderat alvo, Cum sua foedari latrantibus inguina monstris Aspicit, ac primo non credens corporis illas Esse sui partes, refugitque, abiitque timetque Ora proterva canum."

[65] Hæc lucem accipiunt ab Joinville in Hist. S. Ludovici, dum foedera inter Imp. Joannem Vatatzem et Comanorum Principem inita recenset, eaque firmata ebibito alterius invicem sanguine, hacque adhibita ceremonia, quam sic enarrat: "Et ancore firent-ils autre chose. Car ils firent passer un chien entre nos gens et eux, et découpèrent tout le chien à leurs espées, disans que ainsy fussent-ils découpez s'ils failloient l'un à l'autre."--Cfr. in Du Cange the expression "cerebrare canem."

[66] In a fable of Abstemius, a shepherd's dog eats one of the sheep every day, instead of watching over the flock. The shepherd kills him, saying, that he prefers the wolf, a declared enemy, to the dog, a false friend. This uncertainty and confusion between the dog and the wolf explains the double nature of the dog; to prove which I shall refer to two unpublished Italian stories: the first, which I heard from the mouth of a peasant-woman of Fucecchio, shows the bitch in the capacity of the monster's spy; the second was narrated a few years ago by a Piedmontese bandit to a peasant-woman who had shown hospitality to him, at Capellanuova, near Cavour in Piedmont. The first story is called _The King of the Assassins_, and is as follows:--

There was once a widow with three daughters who worked as seamstresses. They sit upon a terrace; a handsome lord passes and marries the eldest; he takes her to his castle in the middle of a wood, after having told her that he is the chief of the assassins. He gives her a she-puppy and says, "This will be your companion; if you treat her well, it is as if you treated me well." Taking her into the palace, he shows her all the rooms, and gives her all the keys; of four rooms, however, which he indicates, there are two which she must not enter; if she does so, evil will befall her. The chief of the assassins spends one day at home and then three away. During his absence she maltreats the puppy, and gives her scarcely anything to eat; then she lets herself be overcome by curiosity, and goes to see what there is in the two rooms, followed by the puppy. She sees in one room heads of dead people, and in the other tongues, ears, &c., hung up. This sight fills her with terror. The chief of the assassins returns and asks the bitch whether she has been well treated; she makes signs to the contrary, and informs her master that his wife has been in the forbidden rooms. He cuts off her head, and goes to find the second sister, whom he induces to come to him by under invitation to visit his wife; she undergoes the same miserable fate. Then he goes to take the third sister, and tells her who he is; she answers, "It is better thus, for I shall no longer be afraid of thieves." She gives the bitch soup, caresses her, and makes herself loved by her; the king of the assassins is contented, and the puppy leads a happy life. After a month, while he is out and the puppy amusing itself in the garden, she enters the two rooms, finds her two sisters, and goes into the other rooms, where there are ointments to fasten on limbs that have been cut off, and ointments to bring the dead to life. Having resuscitated her sisters, and given them food, she hides them in two great jars, furnished with breathing holes, and asks her husband to take them as a present to her mother, warning him not to look into the jars, as she will see him. He takes them, and when he tries to look in, he hears, as he had been forewarned, not one voice, but two whispering from within them, "My love, I see you." Terrified at this, he gives up the two jars at once to the mother. Meanwhile his wife has killed the bitch in boiling oil; she then brings all the dead men and women to life, amongst whom there is Carlino, the son of a king of France, who marries her. Upon the return of the king of the assassins he perceives the treachery, and vows revenge; going to Paris, he has a golden pillar constructed in which a man can be concealed without any aperture being visible, and bribes an old woman of the palace to lay on the prince's pillow a leaf of paper which will put him and all his servants to sleep as soon as he reclines on it. Shutting himself up in the pillar, he has it carried before the palace; the queen wishes to possess it, and insists upon having it at the foot of her bed. Night comes; the prince puts his head upon the leaf, and he and his servants are at once thrown into a deep sleep. The assassin steps out of the pillar, threatens to put the princess to death, and goes into the kitchen to fill a copper with oil, in which to boil her. Meanwhile she calls her husband to help her, but in vain; she rings the bell, but no one answers; the king of the assassins returns and drags her out of bed; she catches hold of the prince's head, and thus draws it off the paper; the prince and his servants awake, and the enchanter is burnt alive.

The second story is called _The Magician of the Seven Heads_, and was narrated to me by the peasant-woman in the following terms:--

An old man and woman have two children, Giacomo and Carolina. Giacomo looks after three sheep. A hunter passes and asks for them; Giacomo gives them, and receives in reward three dogs, Throttle-iron, Run-like-the-wind, and Pass-everywhere, besides a whistle. The father refuses to keep Giacomo at home; he goes away with his three dogs, of which the first carries bread, the second viands, and the third wine. He comes to a magician's palace and is well received. Bringing his sister, the magician falls in love with her and wishes to marry her; but to this end the brother must be weakened by the abstraction of his dogs. His sister feigns illness and asks for flour; the miller demands a dog for the flour, and Giacomo yields it for love of his sister; in a similar manner the other two dogs are wheedled away from him. The magician tries to strangle Giacomo, but the latter blows his whistle, and the dogs appear and kill the magician and the sister. Giacomo goes away with the three dogs, and comes to a city which is in mourning because the king's daughter is to be devoured by the seven-headed magician. Giacomo, by means of the three dogs, kills the monster; the grateful princess puts the hem of her robe round Throttle-iron's neck and promises to marry Giacomo. The latter, who is in mourning for his sister, asks for a year and a day; but before going he cuts the seven tongues of the magician off and takes them with him. The maiden returns to the palace. The chimney-sweeper forces her to recognise him as her deliverer; the king, her father, consents to his marrying her; the princess, however, stipulates to be allowed to wait for a year and a day, which is accorded. At the expiration of the appointed time, Giacomo returns, and hears that the princess is going to be married. He sends Throttle-iron to strike the chimney-sweeper (the black man, the Saracen, the Turk, the gipsy, the monster) with his tail, in order that his collar may be remarked; he then presents himself as the real deliverer of the princess, and demands that the magician's heads be brought; as the tongues are wanting, the trick is discovered. The young couple are married, and the chimney-sweeper is burnt.

[67] Cfr. the _Biblioteca delle Tradizioni Popolari Siciliane_, edited by Gius. Pitrè, ii. canto 811.

[68] In Richardus Dinothus, quoted by Aldrovandi.

[69] From a letter of my friend Pitrè.

[70] _De Quadrup. Dig. Viv._ ii.

[71] Cfr. Du Cange, _s. v._ "canem ferre." The ignominy connected with this punishment has perhaps a phallic signification, the dog and the phallos appear in connection with each other in an unpublished legend maliciously narrated at Santo Stefano di Calcinaia, near Florence, and which asserts that woman was not born of a man, but of a dog. Adam was asleep; the dog carried off one of his ribs; Adam ran after the dog to recover it, but brought back nothing save the dog's tail, which came away in his hand. The tail of the ass, horse, or pig, which is left in the peasant's hand in other burlesque traditions, besides serving as an indication, as the most visible part, to find the lost or fallen animal again, or to return into itself, may perhaps have a meaning analogous to that of the tail of Adam's dog.--I hope the reader will pardon me these frequent repugnant allusions to indecent images; but being obliged to go back to an epoch in which idealism was still in its cradle, while physical life was in all its plenitude of vigour, images were taken in preference from the things of a more sensible nature, and which made a deeper and more abiding impression. It is well known that in the production of the Vedic fire by means of the friction of two sticks, the male and the female are alluded to, so that the grandiose and splendid poetical myth of Prometheus had its origin in the lowest of similitudes.