Laelaps (mythology)

Laelaps /ˈli ˌlæps/^[1] (‹See Tfd›Greek: Λαῖλαψ, gen.: Λαίλαπος meaning "hurricane" or "furious storm"^[2]) was a Greek mythological dog that never failed to catch what it was hunting.

Mythology

In one version of Laelaps' origin story, it was a gift from Zeus to Europa. The hound was passed down to King Minos, who gave it as a reward to the Athenian princess Procris. She obtained it by sleeping with him, after drugging him with a drink from the Circean root, which came from a plant of the milkweed family. ^[3] In another version of her story, she received the animal as a gift from the goddess Artemis.

Procris' husband Cephalus decided to use the hound to hunt the Teumessian fox, a fox that could never be caught. This was a paradox: a dog that always caught its prey versus a fox that could never be caught. The chase went on until Zeus, perplexed by their contradictory fates, turned both to stone and cast them into the stars as the constellations Canis Major (Laelaps) and Canis Minor (the Teumessian fox).^[4]^[5]

Notes

^ "Laelaps in the Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary".
^ Liddell, Henry; Scott, Robert, eds. (1940). "Λαῖλαψ, n.". A Greek-English Lexicon. Clarendon Press.
^ Apollodorus; Hard, Robin; Apollodorus (1997). The library of Greek mythology. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 134, 241. ISBN 978-0-19-953632-0.
^ Apollodorus, 2.4.7
^ DK Publishing (2012). Nature Guide Stars and Planets. Penguin. p. 275. ISBN 978-1-4654-0353-7.

References

Apollodorus, The Library with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. ISBN 0-674-99135-4. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.