Where are the dog heads?
Everyone in the Middle Ages knew that St. Christopher was a dog head, a man’s body with a dog’s head. A Welsh poem about King Arthur told of his battle with the dogheads near Edinburgh: “By the hundred they fell” before Excalibur.
But where did they live? A few said Scandinavia, but most believed they were an Oriental race. When William of Rubruck traveled from Constantinople to Karakorum, the capital of the Mongol empire, in the 1250s, he was surprised to find - no dogheads! And when John de Marigonollis went to China in the following century, they asked him if he knew of dogheads in the West .
The “other” is always exotic, no?
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
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