Anubis in Folklore | The Faeries and Folklore Podcast

ByRonel Janse van Vuuren
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Episode 178: Irascible Immortals: Anubis

The folklore of Anubis in a nutshell and how I reimagined it for my writing.

Transcript

You’re listening to the Faeries and Folklore podcast by Ronel.

I’m dark fantasy author Ronel Janse van Vuuren. With nearly a decade of digging around in dusty folklore books, researching creatures of imagination that ignited my curiosity, I’m here to share the folklore in a nutshell and how I reimagined it for my writing in an origin of the fae.

This is the Faeries and Folklore podcast.

Hi, I’m your host Ronel Janse van Vuuren. You can just call me Ronel. In today’s episode, we’re continuing our exploration of the fae realm.

This episode is brought to you by my Irascible Immortals series, available in ebook, paperback, hardback and audiobook. They’ve been alive forever. They’ve been bored for some time. And now they’re showing it. Go to ronelthemythmaker.com/my-books/the-irascible-immortals-series for more.

We’re continuing our exploration of the Immortals.

Today’s immortal: Anubis

Folklore in a nutshell by Ronel

Anubis: the Egyptian god of death, embalming, mummification, cemeteries and tombs, the afterlife and the Underworld. Depending on the dynasty, he changes roles and significance (seeing as upstarts such as Osiris liked to take his job and title). As one of the most ancient gods, it is peculiar that he took little to no part in Egyptian myths. (Isis, Osiris, Horus and Set like the limelight most.)

Depicted as a jackal or a man with a jackal head, his sacred animal is the African golden jackal (which is now genetically assessed as being a wolf…). He is always depicted in black: it’s a great fashion statement, the colour of the Nile River’s soil, the discoloration of a corpse after embalming, and also the colour symbolising life and regeneration.

It is believed that Ra the sun god is his parent and the serpent goddess Kebechet is his daughter. Though, to be incorporated in the Osiris myths, he suddenly became the son of Isis as she saved him (with the help of wild canines) from wherever her sister hid him from Set’s wrath – or he was Osiris’ son and adopted by his forgiving wife – or he was the son of Bast. Whatever. What is certain, though, is that he weighs souls on a special scale against the feather of Ma’at, and if the soul is unworthy, it gets devoured by Ammit the Devourer; but the worthy get escorted by Anubis to their afterlife.

Despite being well-known as Anubis, it is his Greek name. Before the Greek invasion, he was known as Anpu or Inpu (the root name meaning “to decay”). And though artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries gave him nefarious powers and magical armies, he is still the most recognisable of all the Egyptian gods with popular paintings, statues and secret temples in the deserts (such as the shrine full of mummified dogs and jackals in Anubeion).

Origin of the fae: Anubis

Anubis is a death deity. He is part of what mortals know as the Egyptian Pantheon. His Realm runs parallel to Faerie. Whereas Ankou deals with the death of fae, Anubis deals with the death of humans.

Whereas others of his kind have been forgotten, he is still very busy with his line of work.

He likes to attend funerals, guide mortal souls to their afterlife and hang out with other death deities.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this episode of the faeries and folklore podcast and that you’ve learned something new about faeries.

Remember that you can get a transcript of this episode in the description. If you’re new to the podcast, why not go and grab your free copy of Unseen, the second book in the Faery Tales series, on my website ronelthemythmaker.com? Loads of folklore, magic and danger await! Take care!

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