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 underworld name. Not much is known about her, but she is an ally of Zeus and lives in the underworld. Eurynomos is one of the daemons of the underworld, who eats off all the flesh of the corpses, leaving only their bones. In the Greek underworld, the souls of the dead still existed but they are insubstantial and they flitted around the underworld with no sense of purpose. The dead within the Homeric underworld lack "menos", or strength, and therefore they cannot influence those on earth. They also lack "phrenes", or wit, and are heedless of what goes on around them