Animal symbolism in Greek mythology

The Owl, or more precisely the little owl, is Athena's bird: Athens struck its coinage, the tetradrachm, with its image, and "bringing owls to Athens" already meant bringing what is not lacking. Through her, the bird that sees at night became the image of a wisdom that sees clearly where others grope.

The Eagle belongs to Zeus, who takes its shape to carry off Ganymede and who sends his bird to devour the liver of Prometheus. Interpreting its flight is an art: on the right, the sign is favourable. Rome, later, would make it the standard of its legions.

The Snake is the animal of healing. At the sanctuary of Asclepius in Epidaurus, the sick slept in a sacred dormitory and were visited in their dreams by the god or his serpents; the rod of Asclepius, a single coiled snake, remains the emblem of medicine. The snake also guarded the house and the tombs: it is the ancestor who keeps watch.

The Dolphin saves: the poet Arion, thrown into the sea by pirates, is carried back to shore on the back of one. Apollo himself, in the shape of a dolphin, guides Cretan sailors to Delphi, whose name still keeps the trace. And the Butterfly is called psyche, like the soul: on the vases, the soul leaves the body on wings.

Three keys. The first is divination: the Greeks read the flight of birds, the entrails of the victims, the way the beast approached the altar. A seer went with the army; no battle was joined without a favourable omen. The animal is a messenger, but one listened to only with method.

The second is sacrifice: the relationship with the gods passes through the animal offered, shared between the gods (the smoke) and humans (the meat). The ox, the goat and the pig thus sit at the centre of religious life, far more than the lion or the eagle of legend.

The third is metamorphosis: Zeus becomes bull, swan, eagle; Actaeon is turned into a stag for seeing Artemis bathing; Arachne becomes a spider for challenging Athena. For the Greeks, the animal is the shape a god takes in order to approach, or the shape a human takes after crossing a line. The totem in the sense of a resemblance of character is found rather among the philosophers: Aristotle observes the animals, and Aesop's fables lend them our vices and virtues.

Greece gave the West its animal vocabulary: the learned owl, the imperial eagle, the healing serpent, the swan of the last song. It can be used without fear of appropriation, provided you do not confuse myth with history, and remember that these images were first of all religious stories.

What the oracle keeps above all is the idea that the animal reveals a divine, and therefore excessive, character: the owl is wiser than we are, the eagle higher, the dolphin more joyful. If you are the Horse of Pegasus, the Bee of the priestesses of Demeter or the Lynx of Lynceus the Argonaut, you will find the Greek reading on your page. Otherwise, consult the oracle or read the guide to find your spirit animal.