Cats were worshipped in ancient Egypt. This can be clearly seen by the large amount of cat statues, mummified cats, ... that have been found. There is even a God specific for cats (Bastet).
But why were cats seen as sacred animals?
The Norse æsir gods had animal helpers, but did anyone of them have a bear? Have bears been found in graves, like dogs and horses et cetera? Are there Norse illustration of bears?
Some Norse warriors were called berserks because they wore the fur of…
In Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), we find this sentence:
Man erzählt von einer edlen Art Pferde, die, wenn sie schrecklich erhitzt und aufgejagt sind, sich selbst aus Instinkt eine Ader aufbeißen, um sich zum Atem zu helfen.
Translation…
Does it purely have to do with ahimsa or is it also partly based on the status of Nandi?
(If Nandi is a factor, does this also bear on the protected status of monkeys per Hanuman's assistance to Rama?)
I've also heard it related to Kamadhenu the…
The Celtic Cernunnos, the Greek Dionysus, the Slavic Veles and Vedic Shiva have snake and bull among their symbols.
Why do these two symbols tend to come together?
It looks to me as though these deities also share some other similarities. They tend…
In Cinderella, the fairy godmother turns a rat into a coachman, but while I have read many tales where people are turned into other kinds of animals -- crows, wolves, swans, bears, frogs -- I haven't found one where a person is made a rat.
Are there…
According to Learn Religions and many astrology websites, the number of crows you see predicts the future:
"Seeing just a single crow is considered an omen of bad luck. Finding
two crows, however, means good luck. (Three crows mean health, and
…
In the Fantasy Island (1998) episode "Dreams", Michael Allen is a stockbroker who finds a mysterious woman (played by Jennifer Garner) who says this to him when they first meet.
Sally: You know, there's a theory that dolphins were once human beings…
I don't know a lot about the mythology of central Asian cultures (where the snow leopard comes from). I'm trying to find more information on the cultural impact the animal could have.
Aelian records the following tale of an elephant fighting a dragon:
In India, I am told, the Elephant and the Drakon (Dragon-Serpent) are the bitterest enemies. Now Elephants draw down the branches of trees and feed upon them. And the Drakones,…
I was looking for information on bear cults when I stumbled upon this little gem:
In Native American folklore there are many tales about bears. It is highly respected as the 'keeper of dreams', and 'the keeper of medicine', and is one of the most…
Wikipedia claims:
A snake as a source of knowledge is a recurring theme in Greek mythology, though sometimes the snake brings understanding of the language of animals rather than an ability to know the future. Likewise, prophets without honor in…
When we were small children, our grandma would tell my sister and I stories at bedtime. She loved the Greek myths and Aesop's fables, but I have no idea where this particular story comes from.
It's the story of a hunter in the woods. For some reason…
