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Dog-headed saints

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March 04, 2007, 08:55
<Asa Lovejoy>
Dog-headed saints
In this link, http://www.beyond-the-pale.co.uk/dogsaints.htm
One finds a tie-in between the Greek words for "dog-headed" and "dog-faced" with the heretical 13th C. St Guinefort. From the linguistic standpoint, how much sense does this make?

BTW, there was a movie, "The Sorceress," produced in France in 1988, about this "Dog saint." Until I found this website, I assumed it was purely fictional. Now I'm curious!
March 04, 2007, 09:18
zmježd
My first thoughts were about Anubis, the jackel-headed god of ancient Egypt.

There's a term, theriocephaly, for humans with animal heads—my personal favorite being Ganesh, the Lord of Categories, in Hindu mythology. Found it while browsing Wikipedia on cynocephaly from the article you linked to. There were cat trials and massacres in the middle ages. (I'll try to find a reference.) It makes a kind of sense: dogs being the first demosticated animals, and saints being kinds of demoted gods.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
March 05, 2007, 20:44
Kalleh
Wow...I wanted to see how many "cephaly" words there were, and look what I found!
March 05, 2007, 21:54
Caterwauller
Z, did you notice those odd statues in the lobby of the Fairmont on Saturday? They had lion bodies and the torso/heads of women. I've never seen anything like them. I guess they'd officially be called sphinxes, but they didn't look like others I've seen. They had formal, Euro-type coiffures, all done up on their heads, and they had sort of flowing gown bodices . . . and the lions' paws were HUGE. A quick research seems to indicate that they might be Mannerist Sphinx, but I don't recall seeing any wings.


*******
"Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
~Dalai Lama
March 06, 2007, 07:26
zmježd
I'm sorry I hadn't noticed the statues. I do know that there's more than one kind of sphinx. We think of the huge reclining statue near the Cheops pyramids, but remember a sphinx asked Oedipus the famous riddle.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
March 08, 2007, 23:54
Caterwauller
Yes, I'm fairly certain those statues must have been sphinxes. Now I wish I'd looked at them more closely to see if they'd had wings.


*******
"Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
~Dalai Lama