Origins of Sirius/Keeping the wolf from the door

[arrowsmithbt]

No: HPFGUIDX 92975

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "alshainofthenorth" <alshainofthenorth at y...> 
wrote:
> 
> 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?
> 

Good stuff. Though the alcohol was probably redundant in Sirius' case.
One could also add the concept of the Sothic (So thick!) year determined
by Sirius. 
Keep on like this and the LOONs will be humming with approval.

I've been patching together a not so serious post on names which I must
finish (work is piling up and my time for playing on site is liable to be
restricted over the next few weeks). One of those that I list is Regulus,
brother of Sirius.

Regulus (trans. little king), brightest star in the constellation Leo. 
Now I'd be interested in seeing how you could twist(!) the facts and 
mythology to suit a character that doen't seem very regal or lion-like. Not
trying to lure you into a pitfall, my post concentrates on a different theme,
but I would be entertained if you could do it.

Kneasy