Medieval associations of the rooster with the Sun are surprisingly rare, with only Agrippa listing the rooster as a solar animal. Live roosters were kept by magicians, being among the few creatures without miasma and thus allowed to be familiars, much like cats are today with wiccans. Less violent applications also existed, like icons of roosters or deities with rooster heads in solar amulets. Rooster body parts, such as feathers and feet, were placed inside statues of Helios used by theurgists, while rooster blood was used in medicinal spells. In the 8th Book of Moses (PGM XIII), sacrificing two white roosters is a fundamental offering that starts the ritual, which focuses on worshipping Helios and his 365 subservient deities. In public ritual, roosters appear to have been rather minor sacrifices, but we do know that in theurgical practise sacrificial killings of cocks not only were common, but also actually advised in regards to reaching henosis. In latter esoteric focus of the Sun as a symbol of masculinity, the rooster’s infamous virility would have also further strengthened this connection. As egyptian artistic trends expanded, a reminder of the sun disc in solar deities’ heads would also probably have come into mind, the rooster now bearing the solar sphere on it’s head. Male junglefowl, and as well as the roosters of many breeds, have a bright “mane” of golden feathers, which would defenitely be visually indicative of sunrays, and the rooster’s crest does resemble a crown. The reasons for this correspondence are obvious: the rooster’s crow heralds dawn and the Sun’s coming, and it kills pests like mice and grasshopers, symbolically reflecting Helios’ light driving off nocturnal spirits and bad luck. In mythology, the most blatant case is by his descendent Idomeneus, which bears a shield with a rooster emblazoned in it to display his parentage. This association is so strong that in Late Antiquity Helios is even occasionally depicted with a rooster head, no doubt under egyptian influence, a depiction style later passed to Abraxas/Abrasax. The rooster was recognised as Helios’ sacred bird, and even when associated with other gods, like Apollo and Hermes, it’s always in a solar context, syncretising them with Helios the exception is Selene, and even then this can be assumed as subtle syncretism, as Selene is described rather accurately as reflecting her brother’s light, and is described in her orphic hymn as “female and male”, implying that the rooster here is symbolising Helios’ influence on the Moon. Of all domestic animal species, if all animals, period, the rooster is probably the most unambiguously linked to the Sun god. Some of these associations still survive in medieval magic, but many are rather surprisingly ignored by modern occultists. Best demonstrating the notion of correspondences seen in hellenic magic, Helios was a associated with a number of animals, comparable to the number of species associated with the more popular hellenic gods. While the level of respect that the public worship of the hellenes had for Helios is controversial, he was nonetheless a deity omnipresent in the obscure greek esoteric practises. Based off depictions of Helios, and considered likewise a sola deity, Abrasax is depicted with the head of a rooster and snakes for legs, which happen to be the most common greek solar symbols.
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