Origins of Sirius/Keeping the wolf from the door

[alshainofthenorth]

No: HPFGUIDX 92974

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "arrowsmithbt" 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "greatelderone" 
<greatelderone at y...> wrote:
> x>  
> > Oh dear. This is as "neat" as Sirus being able to turn into a dog 
> > like his namessake or that the story always climaxed at the end 
of 
> > the school year when they were finished or finishing exams. Just 
deal 
> > with it.
> > 
> >
> Kneasy:
> Sirius does not mean 'dog', it just happens to be the brightest 
star in the
> constellation Canis Major. It might be referred to as the 'Dog 
Star' but 
> that is because of its position, not its name. It's a common 
mistake to 
> think the name of the brightest star in the constellation means the 
same
> as the name of the constellation itself. It doesn't. Sloppy  
research.
> Sirius comes from the Greek Seirios, meaning hot or scorching. More
> applicable to his temper than his patronus.

Alshain: Think of "Dog Star" as a synonym for rather than the lexical 
meaning of Sirius. A much older one, actually -- Alpha Canis Majoris 
itself was connected to canines a long time before the Greeks. The 
Egyptian hieroglyph for it was a dog, and the Chinese name for the 
star translates as "Heaven-wolf". Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians 
and Chaldeans all called it different varieties of "Dog Star", 
suggesting that the star itself was the dog of the sun. Phoenicians 
called it "the barker". Ovid and Virgil also connected it with 
Anubis. If you want to trace the etymology ever further, the Arab 
word "sirdj" means "glittering". The astronomer Manilus, in the first 
century CE, said about it that:

"Sirius (the Dog) will fashion unbridled spirits and impetuous 
hearts; it will bestow on its sons billows of anger, and draw upon 
them the hatred and fear of the whole populace... Their hearts start 
throbbing at the slightest cause, and when speech comes their tongues 
rave and bark, and constant gnashing imparts the sound of teeth to 
their utterance. Their failings are intensified by alcohol, which 
gives them strength and fans their savage wrath to flame." 

Does it sound like anyone in the HP-verse?

Just 0.05 Euro-cents (the smallest coin found in this country). I've 
got an astro-historical thing for Alpha Canis Majoris if you can't 
tell. :-)