Kerberos is the demon dog of Greek mythology who guards the doorway to Hades, a frightening,
ravenous beast, who is often known as having three heads, and who many people think could
be legitimately named Spot the Dog, or indeed, I f you’re a Harry Potter fan, Fluffy.
But alas, the truth is that this is not an accurate portrayal of the Proto Indo-European
Hound of Hell.
So let us go on a journey to find out what this dog really looked like, to find out its
true purpose, and to work out its real name.
And spoiler alert, it isn’t Fluffy or Spot.
Hi, I’m Jon White, a specialist in Indo-European Mythology, and by the end of this video you’ll
know the name of the Proto Indo-European Hell Hound, and be able to pronounce it too, and
if you stick around you’ll also find out who Fenrir, the most monstrous of wolves from
Viking mythology, the one that ate their chief god Odin at Ragnarök, really was.
So, grab yourself a cup of tea, and welcome to Crecganford.
The three headed dog most of you know as Kerberos or Cerbeus, depending if you pronounce that
classical Latin hard C, is nothing like the hounds mentioned in the original Proto Indo-European
myths.
And we know as there is a lot of other Indo-European mythology that tells us about these hounds.
And of these myths, perhaps the most often looked at piece is the myth around Yama’s
dogs from India, they’re described in Sanskrit using adjective śabála used to described
the two dogs of Yama, yes two dogs, not one with multiple heads.
And the word śabála is know to mean spotted or vari-coloured, and hence why some people
think the dog’s name could be Spot.
But if we have two dogs they both can’t be called Spot.
Now this Sanskrit adjective has many other comparable words, and they all can be reduced
down to a PIE word of śárbara.
And whilst it is possible to then connect śárbara to kérbero meaning “spotted”,
doing this does have its difficulties, and is far more complicated than I, who am not
an expert on etymology, can understand, and basically it doesn’t feel right.
And so from this point of view we’re left not understanding the names of these two spotted
dogs in the Indic myth, but we know for certain, due to these etymological difficulties, that
neither of the two dogs was called Kerberos.
And speaking of things that are neither, most of you are neither subscribed or liking this
video, so please do that, It’s free, helps this channel become more popular, and helps
you get to know when new videos are released.
As for Kerberos, we are fortunate to have other Indo-European hell hounds that are well
attested to in many mythologies, from India to Iceland, as well as from Greek, Celtic,
Latin, Armenian, and Iranian sources.
And so if looking at Yama’s and Hade’s Hounds of Hell hasn’t helped us then let’s
look at others.
Now one of the best papers of Hell Hounds of Proto Indo-European myth, and this Dogs
of Death mythology is Schlerath’s “Die Hund”, which also proves that the Hell Hound
of Indo-European origin wasn’t called Kerberos.
And what this paper discusses, and which I talked about in my “Dogs of Death” video,
is that the Proto Indo-Europeans didn’t believe in one hell hound, they believed in
two hell hounds, as attested to in most of the other texts other than the Greek.
And these two dogs had different purposes.
One dragged you down into the underworld, into death.
The other had the opportunity to restore life.
And one of the clearest examples we have to show this is within the Armenian tales, which
has a dog called “Spitak”, a white dog, which is able to restore life by licking the
wounds of the dead, and the other dog, called “Siaw”, is a black dog, which can take
the life of a person.
And considering these two dogs, one black the other white, then we could review the
Sanskrit word śárbara and suggest that it be better considered as śabálau, a version
of the word meaning duel or two, rather than vari-coloured or spotty.
So this is a better way to indicated that there were two dogs, of different colours,
rather than one spotted or vari-coloured dog.
And whilst this clears up the meaning of the Sanskrit it does leaves us with a question
which is if the hell hound wasn’t called Kerberos, or Spot the Dog, or Fluffy, as we
have removed the most common reconstruction opportunity for its name, or more accurately
their names, then what were these dogs called?
Although it is also possible that these dogs didn’t have names?
Well, we have some good Germanic evidence that may help us in our quest to find out
Spot the Dogs real name, and that is from a story where Odin descends into the underworld,
which is found in the Poetic Edda, in the poem Baldr’s Draumar.
And in stanzas 2 and 3 it says; Up rose Odin, the ancient Goth, and he on a saddle laid
on Sleipnir; he rode from there down into Misthell, and he met a whelp which came from
hell.
Its front of its chest was bloody and it barked for a long time at the father of magic; on
rode Odin, the earth road roared, until he approached the high hall of Hel.
Now whilst we clearly see here that Odin has come across a hell hound, its name is not
mentioned.
However, most scholars will agree that this hound is Garmr, the monstrous and ravenous
dog bound at the entrance to Hel, and whose release is a signal that Ragnarǫk, the event
that marks the twilight of the gods, has started.
Something evidenced in the first couple of lines of stanza 43 of the Völuspá, in the
Poetic Edda, which says “Garmr howls loudly before Gnipahellir, the fetter will break
and the wolf will run free” But we also find out two clues about the dog in these
lines, one is that he is always howling, and this is something noted in other mentions
of the hound in Old Norse poetry.
But also we have this second clue centred around the wolf’s blood stained chest, which
hints that he has eaten recently, and that he has an appetite for blood, and that he
is a somewhat messy eater.
And from which you could probably argue that he probably eats rather ravenously as he is
hungry.
But we must also consider that in Old Norse, Garmr isn’t a name, the dog isn’t called
Garmr, the word Garmr simply means “dog”, just dog.
It doesn’t mean wolf.
Now some scholars think that Garmr is also Fenrir, and for those who do not know who
Fenrir is, he is normally considered Loki the trickster god’s wolf child.
A wolf that will kill Odin, the chief god of the Vikings, at Ragnarǫk.
But Garmr in all probability is not Fenrir, as Fenrir is never described as a dog, always
a wolf.
Fenrir is chained up in a swamp, where as Garmr is chained up at the entrance to Hel.
And Fenrir is the sister of Hel, where as Garmr is the protector of Hel.
And Garmr is never given any other importance, where as Fenrir is known as the Wolf of Fame,
or the River Monster.
But whilst we’re talking of names, let me show why they can be important, and we can
do this by taking a look at Fenrir’s name, and its origin which is interesting.
You see whist Loki's wolf offspring is often referred to as Fenrir, it is also referred
to as "Fenris-úlfr" or Fenrir’s Wolf.
And the reason for this is because Loki was also known as Fenrir, the fen-dweller and
Saxo refers to him as a subterranean cave dweller, or as an inmate of the eastern iron
wood where, with an ancient hag, he begat Fenrir's brood in the shape of wolves.
In effect Loki and the hag produced baby wolves, and other monsters, and this brood of animal’s
is called Fenrir’s brood.
In effect Loki’s children.
Named after Loki’s other name Fenrir.
And it is due to poetic simplification, or what we could call the forgetting of why we
use words in oral story telling over time and so things get forgotten, we get the phrase
"Fenrir's wolf" turning simply into "Fenrir", and so the famous wolf confers its father’s
name.
So, Fenrir is actually the name of Loki, not the wolf, and that is why names can be important,
it can tell us about the history of the myths.
And that is why I will now will get back on topic and back to Garmr, the dog.
Now the word Garmr, or the Old Norse “dog”, is derived from the Proto Indo-European phrase
*gher- which means to roar, howl, or rage.
But we also see a description of Garmr in Fjolsvinnsmal, somewhere between stanzas 13
and 24 depending on the translation you’re reading.
And this poem, which is basically a quest for a beautiful fair maiden in a forbidden
realm but dressed up as a journey into Hel, this has within it a discussion about the
Hel Hounds which tells us more information, and it goes.
Svipdag said: ‘Tell me, Fjolsvið, as I am asking you, and because I want to know;
what are these dogs called who prowl ravenously around?’
Fjolsvið said: ‘One is called Gifr, and the other Geri, if you would know; they will
keep watch and guard for an eternity until the gods are torn apart.’
Svipdag said: ‘Tell me, Fjolsvið, because I’m asking you, and because I want to know;
is there any man who could come in here while those hardened dogs are sleeping?’
Fjolsvið said: ‘Very different sleeping patterns were strictly established for them,
once guard-duty was assigned to them; one sleeps by night, and the other by day, and
so nothing that goes there gets in.’
Svipdag said: ‘Tell me, Fjolsvið, because I’m asking you, and because I want to know;
is there any food which men might give them so they could run right in while they’re
eating?’
Fjolsvið said: ‘The raw flesh of two wings from (the mythical bird) Vidofnir, if you
want to know; that’s the only food which men might give them so they could run right
in while they’re eating.’
And the clues these stanzas provide are two fold.
One that the hounds can be overcome by offering them specific food, and two, that they are
sleepless dogs, always watching the path in and out of Hell.
And that is an important consideration as this has close correspondence with Greek,
Roman, and Indo-Iranian Hell Hound mythology, meaning we can be sure it is a part of the
original myth.
And an example of this is where one can pass Yama’s dogs by offering the Agnihotra sacrifice
or by giving them kidneys of the sacrificial victim.
Or you can pass Kerberos with a honey-soaked sop.
Which led to the practice in Greece of burying the dead with a honey cake, and is noted in
a few places including a scholium to Aristophanes in Lysistrata 601.
And to show further similarity, in Vergil’s Aeneid 6.417-23 we see a passage stressing
the same qualities for the dog as that from Baldr’s draumar.
And this reads as.
Huge Cerberus fills these realms with the howling Of his triple throats; enormous, he
crouches before the cave.
The seer, observing his neck bristle with serpents, Tossed him a sleep-inducing sop
containing honey And enchanting fruits.
Extending his three ravenous throats, he Seized that which was offered, relaxed his immense
body, And sprawled upon the ground.
Enormous, he stretched through the whole cave.
And so we again see this common, in fact, near constant theme of howling, and how their
appetite is their weakness.
But we were wondering the real name of the Dog called Spot, and Fjolsvinnsmál did tell
us two names.
The name Gifr meaning “the greedy one” and which is closely related to the Old English
gīfer, meaning “devourer”.
The other dog, Geri, that name has a similar meaning, but it can mean “wolf” or “dog”
as a noun, but as an adjective it means “greedy” or “hungry”.
Geri appears again in the Prose Edda’s the Gylfaginning, and the Poetic Edda’s, the
Grímnismál, alongside another animal called Freki.
And here is named as one of the wolves of Odin.
And within the Poetic Edda’s Helgakviða Hundingsbana 1, stanza 13 it actually states
what these dogs are hungry for, it says they’re “greedy for the corpses of those fallen
in battle”.
And so, putting this all together, we are left with three names, Geri, Gifr, and Freki,
and all of which share a similar meaning, “greedy”.
And all these terms can be found derived from the Proto Indo-European *gh(e)-rēdh-, and
from this we can identify the root of the word which is *gher- which itself points to
the same root behind the Old Norse name Garmr.
Now *gher- doesn’t really have a meaning, it is an onomatopoeia, it’s a noise, an
animal noise.
And this is explained more in Pokorny’s work on Proto Indo-European language if you’re
interested in delving further into onomatopoetic practices of the Proto Indo-Europeans.
But for us, now, with all this, we may now be able to reach some sort of conclusion about
the names of the two Hounds of Hell.
The fact that they are ravenous, greedy, hungry hounds, means that they growl.
But not only through their throat, but through their stomach too.
The PIE root word describing them is *gher- after all.
The names must have derived from this sound, this growl the hounds made as devourers of
corpses, and this trait of devouring corpses would make them part of funeral rituals in
Indo-European cultures, and I’ll discuss that more in a future video.
What it is important to understand then is that the essence of the Hell Hound is that
of an intermediary position, not only between the mortal world and hell, but also these
dogs stand between untamed animal and human, they are good and bad, they give hope and
fear, they offer life and death.
And the growl, the *gher- well that can be seen as between silence and speech.
A sound which is emotional and powerful.
These hounds growl but you cannot understand them, like death, they speak but do not listen,
they act, but do not reflect.
They are driven by hunger and greed.
The Hell Hound represents the moment of death, the point where you know your life is going,
the great crossing over.
And so when you say *gher- you are saying the names of these hounds of hell, so be careful
not to say it to loudly in case they come for you.
And with that please stay safe and well.
And this was Crecganford.