Sops to Cerberus

[blenberry]

No: HPFGUIDX 33351

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Jenett <gwynyth at d...> wrote:
 
> However, while music is one of the standard things to try with wild 
> animals, it's more specific, in my recollection to *Orpheus* (a 
> specific mythological human being) than linked to any specific 
> animal. <snip>
> One of the more conventional methods I always heard in the 
mythology 
> of dealing with Cerberus was honey and bread or meat or meat bones 
> being thrown - one grouping of food for each head. 

> -Jenett




Just had to chime in here.  I, too, remember that the *usual* way to 
get past Cerberus was to throw him honey cakes.  I think the reason 
music worked for Orpheus had more to do with his extraordinary skill 
on the lute, not because Cerberus had a special weakness for music 
(Orpheus worked his musical magic on Hades himself, as well).  So it 
would be a dangerous assumption to think that anybody playing any 
instrument could subdue any old three-headed dog.  Susceptibility to 
any kind of music seems to be an individual quirk of Fluffy's.

Barbara