[QUOTE=Jinx]
Ironically, this is the name of the gay bar I’m opening next week.
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
Anyway we might be able to peruse it online kind fellow?
Not online, unfortunately – the best you’ll get is a listing of the talk’s title. I’ve been trying to prepare this one as a book.
:Q: I know that ancient mythology influences the naming of certain phenomena in meteorology and astronomy, but I was wondering more specifically about the name given to parhelion - “sun dogs.” Could this name come from a myth in which the sun god’s chariot was lead by dogs? I have read many myths about the sun god and his horses that lead the chariot and they all have names. If in some myths dogs did lead the chariot, what would their names be?
A: This is a fascinating question, and I have found all the workings of an answer in two articles I located through a search of the Internet.
First, for readers who might not know what you’re talking about:
“Sun dogs” are another name for the optical phenomena, parhelia, which are the colored splotches of light commonly seen to the right, the left or on both sides of the sun. They form when ice crystals bend sunlight, separating it into its colors and redirecting the light at 22° angles on each side of the sun. They also are known as mock suns, and may appear as bright white sunlight, just like the sun, instead of in colors.
My Web search turned up a similar question to Weatherwise magazine’s Weather Queries section and answered, apparently unsatisfactorily, in the March/April 2001 issue. Read the answer here on the Weatherwise site.
Stephen R. Wilk, who is a physicist and a writer on classical mythology, replied to Weatherwise with a very detailed and highly informative article that traces the use of the term back to the 1st century A.D. You can read the online article on the Weatherwise site. (Warning: the page may open slowly.)
Whose dogs are they? Wilk notes that the Germanic sky god was Odin. We learn in various sources that Odin did indeed have two “hounds.” They were actually wolves, named Geri (Ravener) and Freki (Glutton). In all likelihood, the answer to the question, “Whose dogs are the sun dogs?” is thus the German sky god Odin.
Wilk’s answer goes much further than this, noting that cultures all over the world have legends about what we call “sun dogs.”
From here: http://www.usatoday.com/weather/resources/askjack/wasksky.htm
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-94079393.html
If you’re interested in more about this, and how it relates to Phaethon, e-mail me.