Also called Kerberos, The hound of Hades.
Their story
Cerberus is the child of Typhon and Echidna, a flesh-eating hound with a voice of bronze who fawns on those entering Hades but eats anyone who tries to leave. Hesiod gives him fifty heads; later art usually shows three. Heracles dragged him up from the underworld as his last labour. In Virgil the Sibyl lulls him with a drugged honey cake.
Best times to give to them
- When remembering the dead
- When crossing a hard threshold in life
What they like being given
- A honey cake, as the Sibyl gave him in Virgil
- Care given to a guard dog or any dog
How to honour them
- Reflect on what guards the boundaries of your life, and which should stay closed.
- Care kindly for dogs in his memory; he was a guardian, not a villain.
How they can help you
- Understanding thresholds
- Loyal protection
- Boundaries between life and death
Symbols
- three heads
- serpent tail
- chain
- honey cake
Sources
- Hesiod, Theogony 310-312, 769-774
- Homer, Iliad 8.366-369
- Apollodorus, Library 2.5.12
- Virgil, Aeneid 6.417-425