The Fifth Head of Cerberus The Fifth Head of Cerberus The Fifth Head of Cerberus is the title of both a novella and a single-volume collection of three novellas, written by American science fiction and fantasy author Gene Wolfe, both published in 1972. The novella was included in the anthology "Nebula Award Stories Eight". The title of this collection of novellas is a play on words which refers to Cerberus a three-headed dog from Greek mythology which guarded the gate to the Greek underworld, Hades. In the first novella the protagonist explains that Cerberus represents his own family, its three heads being his father, aunt
Greek mythology to prove, as in the case of the Greek Moirai and the Norns of Norse mythology. It appears that the Mycenaean religion was the mother of the Greek religion and its pantheon already included many divinities that can be found in classical Greece. However, Greek mythology is generally seen as having heavy influence of Pre-Greek and Near Eastern cultures, and as such contains few important elements for the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European religion. Consequently, Greek mythology received minimal scholarly attention in the context of Indo-European comparative mythology until the mid 2000s. Archaeology and mythography have revealed influence from Asia Minor