Lesson 4 Representation: The Holy, the Demonic, and the Neutral

The modern depiction of St Guinefort and a greyhound

Credit: Image 1 Image 2

Saint Guinefort

 This is the first and only sainted dog. Though the Catholic Church later removed his saint hood he was a saint for a bit. The story goes that Saint Guinefort was a simple dog who saved the child of a Lord from a venomous snake. The Lord didn't realize that this dog was saving his child and was angry because he believed he was trying to harm his child. So as any rational person would he killed the dog. This was a problem because the Lord was very wrong. The Lord then saw that his child was perfectly safe regretted his actions. The locals made Guinefort a saint. Soon after he was sainted by the locals a caused the creation of religious cult to worship the holy dog. 

 This became a problem when the Catholic Church learned about this religious cult. A man named Stephen of Bourbon visited Dombes where the cult was located. He wrote this about the activities of the cult:

 

When they [the women with sick children] arrived, they would make offerings of salt and other things; … they would pass the naked babies between the trunks of two trees the mother, on one side, held the baby and threw it nine times to the old woman, who was on the other side. Invoking the demons, they called upon the fauns [fairies] in the forest of Rimite to take the sick, feeble child which, they said, was theirs, and to return their child that the fauns had taken away, fat and well, safe and sound. Having done this, the infanticidalmothers took their children and laid them naked at the foot of the tree on straw from the cradle; then, using the light they had brought with them, they lit two candles, each an inch long, one on each side of  the child’s head and fixed them in – the trunk above it. Then they withdrew…so as not to see the child or hear him crying... (credit One the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit)

Though I don't think that the primary source of one man's ideas on a woman lead religious cult is the most trust worthy it was enough for the Catholic Church. The cult was stamped out because many believed Saint Guinefort was actually the devil. 

 

 This story is interesting to me because of the difference in perceptions of Saint Guinefort. There are may things at work here. There is a lot of cultural context that has either been lost to time or that I don't have a deep enough understanding of medieval France to truly understand it. I do think that it is interesting that even though many of us can agree that many animals and in this case dogs can display kind and loving qualities we can't allow them to be saints. This relates to what we learned about last week and how we have all made a constant and in some cases unconscious effort to separate humans and animals. Even a saintly dog like Guinefort will be called a devil. 

A scary dog and the black poodles associated with Demonic dogs

Credit: Image 1 Image 2

 

Demonic Poodles

 There have been many dogs throughout the history of folklore that are connected with death and the underworld. For some dogs embody a restless soul, the soul of some evil doer that is dead.

 There are story after story about the different dogs you must avoid. In German folklore look out for a dog that is black, shaggy, and has red eyes you may bee dealing with the devil. There are many ledges of ghost dogs usually white in color but it can vary. One of the most famous variations of these ghost dogs is the Window-pan dog. This is a dog that has large eyes and takes the shape of a black poodle. This dog may accompany you on your nightly travels but it can grow to monstrous size and lead you astray from your path. 

So why are there so many evil black dogs. This like our last story goes back to the middle ages. This mainly comes from the many superstitions that were rampant in medieval times. Black dogs are commonly the companion to a wizard like a black cat to a witch. This along with the fact that many domestic animals scare at the sight of a black dog, made many people think they are demonic. It was also told that the devil takes the form of a black mastiff dog 

Truly the Devil incarnate

Credit: Here

 Though I'm sure many of us think we are better than our medieval ancestors that demonized the dog I would like to turn your attention to the modern perception of the cat. Though the cat isn't as demonized as the past cats are by many people seen innately different than other pets. This may be due to the fact that they are not truly domesticated or that they are independent of our influence. What ever it is that causes us to demonize cats we will hopefully become better and give these animals our respect.