Who needs a scapegoat to blame troubles on when you can have a scapedog instead.
Relax, Scooby-Doo, I’m not talking about you.
I am referring to Sirius, the hunting dog that belonged to Orion, the great hunter in ancient Greek mythology.
Sirius is the reason that the days of July 3rd to August 11th are known as the Dog Days of Summer.
Sure, Orion was a celebrity in ancient Greek mythology, but his dog eventually became a bigger star.
As quoted by UniverseToday.com, the Iliad refers to Sirius as “as the star that cometh forth at Harvest-time, shining forth amid the host of stars in the darkness of the night, the star whose name men call Orion’s Dog.”
As reported by MentalFloss.com, “Sirius, the Dog Star, is the brightest star in the sky. The ancient Greeks noticed that in the summer months, Sirius rose and set with the Sun, and they theorized that it was the bright, glowing Dog Star that was adding extra heat to the Earth in July and August.”
As reported by ABC News affiliate WPDE, “The appearance of Sirius coincided with the peak heat of the summer. The Greeks and Romans associated this time with heat, drought, thunderstorms, lethargy, mad dogs, fever and bad luck.”
The ancient Greeks were not the only ancient people to treat Sirius like a dog.
“Interestingly, totally separate ancient cultures with no apparent communication have related the brilliant Sirius with either a wolf or a dog. In ancient Chaldea (present day Iraq) the star was known as the ‘Dog Star that Leads’. In ancient China, the star was identified as a heavenly wolf. And in Assyria and Akkadia, it was said to be the ‘Dog of the Sun’. To add to the list, North American indigenous tribes have talked of the star in canine terms: the Seri and Tohono O’odham tribes of the southwest describe Sirius as a ‘dog that follows mountain sheep’, while the Cherokee paired Sirius with Antares as a dog-star guardian of the ‘Path of Souls’. The Skidi tribe of Nebraska knew it as the ‘Wolf Star’, while further north, the Alaskan Inuit of the Bering Strait called it ‘Moon Dog’.”
The Dog Days of Summer will not last forever. History.com reports, “In approximately 10,000 years, the date of the heliacal rising of Sirius will fall back so late on the calendar that future civilizations in the northern hemisphere will experience the ‘dog days’ of winter.”
By the way, the Dog Days of Summer are a good time to go to a theater to watch a movie such as …
The “Wanted” posters say the following about David: “Wanted: A refugee from planet Melmac masquerading as a human. Loves cats. If seen, contact the Alien Task Force.”