Often, Psoglav (a creature in Slavic mythology with a dog head and a human body) was mistaken for a giant.
Konstantin Jiriček wrote that “among many medieval stories, there are those which tell about giants who lived in caves, and their next of kin were other giants with one eye and dog head”
In some Christian Orthodox
churches there are icons with Saint Christopher who has a head of a dog. One
such exists in the monastery in Sukovo, and there, they also call saint Christopher
the dogheaded saint or “psoglavi svetac”. (By the way, in the same monastery there
is a representation of Mary,
mother of Jesus, with wings.) One legend says that he, saint Christopher,
was actually Psoglav. when Roman army attacked one pack of psoglavs, they
captured one of them and sent him to Rome. There he was introduced to
christianity, and got the name Christopher. Later, because of his difficult
life, and painful death he was canonised.
To find out more about Psoglavs watch my video:
REFERENCES:
Out of the books I read to
prepare for this video the most helpful was Srpska mitologija u verovanju, običajima i ritualu (Serbian mythology) by Sreten Petrović
