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The goddess, or planet, described in this tale is very evidently Diana, appropriately introduced as the deity of the chase, but more significantly as the queen of the witches, and mistress of mysteries and divination. In both forms the dog has a peculiar adaptation, because a black dog was the common attendant of a sorcerer, as exampled by that of Henry C. Agrippa.

The dove is so widely spread in this world, and is everywhere so naturally recognised as a pretty, innocent creature, that it is no wonder that very different and distant races should have formed much the same ideas and traditions regarding it. It is a curious anomaly that while doves, especially in Roman Catholic symbolism, are the special symbols of love and peace, there are in reality no animals or birds which fight and peck so assiduously among themselves, as I have verified by much observation. However, herein the pious mythologists “builded better than they knew,” for the odium theologicum, either with heretics or among rivals in the Church, has been the cause of more quarrelling than any other in the world—woman perhaps excepted.