Guardian Beast

myth:guardian_beast

The animal who walks beside a human life: the daemon of Pullman's Lyra, shaped as the soul made visible; the familiar of the witch, the raven on the wizard's shoulder; the patron animal of the hero — Heracles and the lion, Artemis and the deer, Odin's wolves and ravens. The beast-companion as the part of a human life that the human cannot directly see — the shadow made creature, the soul given four legs. — comparative myth