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Odin, also, in his character of a Psychopompos, was followed by a host of rats. As the souls of the departed are symbolized as rats, so is the psychopomp himself often figured as a dog.
A lamp flickered upon the table. His shadow twitched and wavered about the plastered walls, a portentous mass of head upon a hemisphere of shoulders, as Raoul bent over a chest, sorting the contents, singing softly to himself, while Matthiette leaned upon the sill without, and the gardens of Arnaye took form and stirred in the heart of a chill, steady, sapphire-like radiance. Raymond Psychopompos
When he was taken into the circle of Greek theological thought his swiftness recommended him to the position of messenger of the gods, and his function as psychopompos, the guide of souls to the other world, would then follow naturally; from this function it cannot, however, be inferred that he was originally a chthonic deity a character that does not accord with the early portraitures of him.
Originally, outside Homer, Hermes was simply an old upright stone, a pillar furnished with the regular Pelasgian sex-symbol of procreation. Set up over a tomb he is the power that generates new lives, or, in the ancient conception, brings the souls back to be born again. He is the Guide of the Dead, the Psychopompos, the divine Herald between the two worlds.
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