Black Doggerel

Am re-reading Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, thanks to the kindness of beautiful manicmiranda, and it's making me muse about daemons.

From Northern Lights (that's The Golden Compass for those of you with the Colonial edition):

"Anyway, there's compensations for a settled form."

"What are they?"

"Knowing what kind of person you are. Take old Belisaria. She's a seagull, and that means I'm a kind of seagull too. I'm not grand and splendid nor beautiful, but I'm a tough old thing and I can survive anywhere and always find a bit of food and company. That's worth knowing, that is. And when your daemon settles, you'll know the sort of person you are."

"But suppose your daemon settles in a shape you don't like?"

"Well, then, you're discontented, en't you? There's plenty of folk as'd like to have a lion as a daemon and they end up with a poodle. And till they learn to be satisfied with what they are, they're going to be fretful about it. Waste of feeling, that is."

I'm not new to the idea of part of one's soul taking the form of a creature, and it's not the first time I've thought about it, which is why I already had the icon for this post uploaded - sparky, flighty, playful, greedy, adventurous, unprincipled, attracted to shiny things, tough, loyal, down-to-earth, clever, conspicuous, resourceful and elegant in a common sort of way... oh, and curious. Very, very curious... which brings me to my point.

Think about it for a little while - if yours could take a physical form, what do you think it would be? Can you tell me why?