How NAFO and her Fella's are related with Mythology

When someone is active nowadays onTwitter, will meet them one way or another. Accounts of persons with strange names who have a profile picture with a funny dog, cat or other cute animal with humanoid clothes and attributes.

They call themselves "Fella's" and they are connected by NAFO, the North Atlantic Fella Organisation. No link with NATO, not even an organisation.  More like a movement, world wide. A group adults concerned by the fate of Ukraïne, fighting against the Russian invasion accompanied with propaganda: fakenews and lies, shared daily on the internet, on mainstream media, on Youtube, on Twitter or other socials. Lots of these Fella's are deeply involved in Ukraine, volonteering, driving old ambulances, energy supplies, food, clothes, pillows and blankets to Lviv or deeper into the warzone.  Lots of them donate money monthly or even more frequently.

Although it's the first time that such a big movement arose on social media, this world wide movement has some similarity with mythological hero's or more modest helpers.

The first Greek god who comes to my mind is Hermes. Hermes was very swift (as the World Wide Web is) and his main strenght is communication. He is the messenger of Mount Olympos (where the Olympic gods live), he is the god of heralds, merchants and travelers, thieves, sports, athletics and speed, dogs and shephards. His cult in ancient Greece was mostly found in remote regions, so originally he should have been a god of nature, farmers, domestic animals and shepherds. In that context his messages will have had the character of divination, magic, shamanism, sacrifices and initiation, Contact with other planes of existence, a mediator between worlds of visible and invisible.   Hermes guided the souls to Hades, the under and upper world. He has a scepter, among other attributes: The caduceus, a staff with two intertwined snakes. Sometimes they have wings and a sphere. The Babylonians documented this attribute about 3500 BC. Two snakes colled around a staff was in that culture a symbol of the god Ningishzida, who served like Hermes as a mediator between humans and the divine (the goddess Ishtar and her supreme Ningirsu).

There is much more to tell about Hermes, but as you can see he has very ancient roots. In comparative mythology our theory is that these gods are representing human traits. Although Hermes wasn't an angel, he could be as swift as an angel, and he was definitely the most important messenger for humans. He protected people ánd gods, he guarded boundaries and he acted like a shepherd did.  So here is the similarity with Fella's. They try to protect the victim of the invasion, Ukraine, fight against desinformation on the internet and try to make space for the truth: the message of the gods for people. The internet and social media can easily be seen as the under and upperworld, mostly intertwined. The intertwined snakes on the staff of Hermes are a symbol and helpers to unravel lie and truth.

Most important is the avatar which is chosen to represent the Fella's.  Fella in the meaning of friend, the NAFO Fella's are friends who are helping the "underdog" of this Russian invasion: Oekraïne. It is not the first time Russia is invading a neigbor country, in the contrary, Russia invaded frequently and for ages neighbors like history showes us. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_invasion  The Russian society describes herself as an agricultrual & war society. Interesting, isn't it? So the identity of this country is war on a high priority.  Why is that?  Because it's never enough? Because that's the only thing this country is good at?  What's the deeper drive of the Kremlin and his oligarchs? https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-war-ukraine-identity-history-and-conflict

The Fella Avatars are mostly doggies (Shiba Inu breed) or cats, and some other animals were added, like fish, sharks, raccoons, badgers and even a catfish.

When you want to search for a list of mythological dogs, be my guest:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mythological_dogs

It's plausible that the name "Fella's" relate to the invincible and magical Irish mythical dog Failinis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failinis

Let's focus on why we often choose this furry fourlegged friends.  Well, in pre-historical times we already domesticated wild dogs and cats. Not that we reached out so much as humans at the first place, but mostly because they could find used human food remains in and around the settlements. Grain storage attracted mice, and so that was an easy catch. And sometimes they found protection for their bigger preditors, due the fireplaces. Humans saw the benefit of those animals, saving their food from mice and rats. But the dogs were useful to herd their cattle and protect human possesions. Dogs are descendents of wolves, cats from catbreeds like lynx and servals, or other African breeds.  

DNA evidence suggests dogs were domesticated between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago. And there's evidence of dogs being buried with owners at least 15,000 years ago. It's thought that cats domesticated themselves around 10,000 years ago. Watch two lovely video's about the origins and find out how many years humans are friends with these furry fourlegs and waggy tail species! https://www.ucl.ac.uk/culture-online/case-studies/2021/mar/what-came-first-cat-or-dog

Interesting is that around all domestic settlements around the world, these cats and dogs befriended humans around the same time;  science found out they started to digest other food then only meat, like they were feed like humans did, with more grains for exemple.

So history shows that we loved our doggies and cats for many ages and because they are such close friends they became mythical figures along the way.

Well, now you know how much value this furry friends have for us as humans, you love your Fella friends even more as you did so far..... ;-)  Let's be good Fella's for Ukraine and other countries who are invaded by (neighbor) preditors, and protect them like our ancestor Fella's already did for thousands of years!