Bear in Myth and Legend

Bear in Myth and Legend

By Boria Sax, excerpt from The Mythical Zoo, Animals in Myth, Legend and Literature.

Of all animals, the bear is probably the one that most clearly resembles human beings in appearance. Even apes cannot stand fully upright, and only walk with difficulty. The bear, however, can run on two legs almost as well as a human. Like a person, a bear looks straight ahead, but the expression of bears are not easy for us to read. Often the wide eyes of a bear suggest perplexity, making it appear that the bear is a human being whose form has mysteriously been altered. Bears, however, are generally far larger and stronger than people, so they could easily be taken for giants.

Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of bears is their ability to hibernate and then reemerge at the end of winter, which suggests death and resurrection. In part because bears give birth during hibernation, they have been associated with mother goddesses. The descent into caverns suggests an intimacy with the earth and with vegetation, and bears are also reputed to have special knowledge of herbs.

At Drachenloch, in a cave high in the Swiss Alps, skulls of the cave bear have been found facing the entrance in what appears to be a very deliberate arrangement. Some anthropologists believe this is a shrine consecrated to the bear by Neanderthals, which would make it the earliest know place of worship. Others dispute the claim; true or not, the very idea is testimony to the enormous power that the figure of the bear has over the human imagination.

The cult of the bear is widespread, almost universal, among people of the Far North, where the bear is both the most powerful predator and the most important food animal. Perhaps the principal example of this cult today is the one followed by the Ainu, the earliest inhabitants of Japan. They traditionally adopt a young bear, raise it as a pet, and then ceremoniously sacrifice the animal. Eskimo legends tell of humans learning to hunt from the polar bear. For the Inuit of Labrador, the polar bear is a form of the Great Spriti, Tuurngasuk. The name of Arthur, the legendary king of Britain, derives from “Artus,” which originally meant “bear”.

The Great Golden Bear overtaking the Transit Commission System Map. Photo taken by Elena.

Countless myths and legends reflect an intimacy between human beings and bears. The Koreans, for example, traditionally believe that they are descended from a bear. As the story goes, the tiger and the female bear had watched humans from a distance, and they became curious. As they talked together on a mountainside one day, both decided that they would like to become human. An oracle instructed them to first eat twenty-one cloves of garlic, and then remain in a cave for one month. They both did as instructed, but after a while the tiger became restless and left the cave. The mother bear remained, and at the end of a month she emerged as a beautiful woman. The son of Heaven, Han Woon, fell in love her and had a child with her., Tan Koon, who is the ancestor of the Koreans.

The Greek deity Artemis, whose name literally means “bear”, was the goddess of the moon, the hunt, and animals. The bear was also sacred to Diana, her Roman equivalent. In a story from the Roman poet Ovid, the god Jupiter disguised himself as Duana, and then raped her nymph companion Callisto. On realizing that Calliston was pregnant, Diana banished the young girl from her presence. Eventually Callisto gave birth to a boy named Arcas. Juno, the wife of Jupiter, turned Callisto into a bear and forced her to roam the forest in perpetual fear. Arcas grew to be a young man. He went hunting in the forest, saw his mother, and raised his bow to shoot her. At that moment, Jupiter looked down, took pity on his former mistress, and brought both mother and son up to Heaven, where they became the constellation of the great and little bear. This is only one version of the story among many, but the Arcadians traditionally trace their origin to Callisto and her son.

The ancient Hebrews, who were herders, regarded carnivorous animals as unclean, and the bear was no exception. In the Bible, the young David protected his flock against bears (1 Samuel 17:34). The bear became a scourge of God when small boys followed the prophet Elisha and made fun of his bald head. Elisha cursed them, and two she-bears came out of the woods and killed the children (2 Kings 2:23-24). According to tradition, however, Elisha was later punished with illness for his deed.

The Tingit and many other Indian tribes on the northwest coast of the North American continent have told stories of a young woman who was lost in the woods and was befriended by a bear. At first she was afraid, but the bear was kindly and taught her the ways of the forest. Eventually she became his wife. She grew thick hair and hunted like a bear. When the couple had children, she at first tried to teach them the ways of both bears and human beings. Her human family, however, would not accept the marriage, and her brothers killed her husband, whereupon she broke completely with the ways of humans.

No longer greatly feared, the bear has become a symbol of vulnerability. Everybody in the United States who was born before the 1970s or so has seen posters with Smokey the Bear, who was created during World War II to warn people that Japanese shelling might begin a conflagration in the woods of America. When the war ended, the United States Forest Service retained Smokey as a symbol in a campaign to prevent the careless ignition of forest fires. Far from being bestial, he has a rather parental image. He wears human clothes and a forester's hat. His facial expression is mature, friendly, and a little melancholy. Yet if Smokey seems almost absurdly civilized, his role remains that of bears since archaic times – protector of the wild. 

The enormous size of the bear, together with its similarity to human beings, often makes it an object of both awe and derision. Photograph by Elena.