The Bear
Instinctive strength, and a fierce mothering.
The Bear: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The bear is great strength close to the earth, sleeping through winter and waking in spring. Erich Neumann counted it among the animals of the Great Mother, and Jungian writers read it as the instinct in its protective and its dangerous forms.
At Brauron the girls of Athens danced as bears for Artemis before they could marry, and Callisto, the goddess’s companion, was changed to a bear and set among the stars: the bear belongs to the untamed feminine and the great mother who sleeps in the cave and comes out with her young. The Ainu and the Siberian peoples held bear festivals in which the animal was raised, killed, and sent home to its people as a guest.
In Snow-White and Rose-Red the bear who comes to the fire in winter is an enchanted prince: the instinct that is a companion when it is let in.
The Bear: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Artemis and the girls who served her at Brauron as “little bears,” Callisto turned into the Great Bear of the sky, the bear-shirted berserkers, Goldilocks. The berserkers, the bear-shirts; King Arthur, whose name has been read as “bear”; the bear in the alchemical Pandora as the prima materia; Winnie-the-Pooh.
From the Sources
In 2 Samuel, Hushai warns that 'thy father and his men' are mighty men, 'chafed in their minds, as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field'.
“For, said Hushai, thou knowest thy father and his men, that they be mighty men, and they be chafed in their minds, as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field: and thy father is a man of war, and will not lodge with the people.”
The King James Version of the Bible, 2 Samuel 17:8. King James Version, Project Gutenberg eBook #10. The text, read in part
Frazer reports that the men sometimes drink the bear's warm blood so that its courage and other virtues may pass into them, and smear themselves with it to ensure success in hunting.
“However, the men sometimes drink the warm blood of the bear "that the courage and other virtues it possesses may pass into them"; and sometimes they besmear themselves and their clothes with the blood in order to ensure success in hunting.”
Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: a study of magic and religion, Chapter 52, "Killing the Divine Animal", section 5, "Killing the Sacred Bear". Abridged edition (preface dated June 1922), Project Gutenberg eBook #3623. The text, read in part
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
Where to Read
- Erich Neumann, The Great Mother (1955)
- Erich Neumann, The Great Mother (1955)
- Brothers Grimm, “Snow-White and Rose-Red”
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among Beasts
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Bear.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/bear.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Ascent: Rising toward the light, and coming down again. The Bath: Immersion that cleanses and joins. The Bee: The ordered community, and souls on the wing. The Bird: Spirit, soul, and thought in flight.