[CHAPTER V.]
THE SERPENT AND THE AQUATIC MONSTER.
SUMMARY.
The feet and the tail; the serpent is the favourite form of the demon; the devil is betrayed by his tail.—The serpent and the waters; the dragon as the keeper back of the waters, and as the guardian of the treasures; the devil evoked from the waters.—The otter.—The chief enterprise of Indras is the killing of the serpent.—The names of the Vedic serpent; arbuda and reptilis.—Description of the Vedic serpent.—The wives of the demons and the wives of the gods; Indras wounds the wife of the demon in the yonis, and the demon himself in the eggs; the serpent's death consists in the broken egg; broken eggs, skins, vases, boxes, and testicles.—The god as a serpent; the python.—Gods and demons, birds and serpents dispute the possession of the ambrosia.—The phallical Anantas of cosmogony; the two phalloi.—Nâgalatâ; the game of the serpents, nâgas, nâgapadas, nâgapaças.—The caduceus.—Kaçyapas Praǵâpatis, father of the birds and of the serpents.—Kumbhakarnas.—The hero dies as soon as he touches the serpent.—The funereal rope of Yamas is a serpent; the collar of Hêphaistos.—The serpents carry Sîtâ on their heads.—The city of Bhogavatî.—The hero becomes an aquatic monster in consequence of a curse.—The serpent released from the fire.—The wisdom of the serpent passes into the hero.—The three-headed serpent.—The serpent sacred in India and in Germany.—The stone of the serpent.—The serpent and the tree.—The tree and the phallos.—The cypress.—The tree, the maiden, and the serpent at the fountain.—The tree of the cross.—The serpent is wholly diabolical in Persian tradition.—The serpent is a mythical animal, both physically and morally amphibious.—The hero, the frog, and the serpent.—The grateful serpent.—Dialogue between two little serpents in a variety of the legend of Lear.—The serpent burnt.—Serpents and worms.—The serpent as the beautiful maiden's husband.—The heads of the serpent.—The serpent of the Black Sea.—The serpent-fairy gives eyes back to the blind woman.—The avenging serpent.—When the serpent is asleep.—The serpent in the garden of the Hesperides.—The serpent-wizard.—The serpent's kiss.—The serpent that whistles.—The wings of the serpent wet; the Vedic myth once more.
The mythical animal with which I conclude the study of traditional zoology is perhaps the most popular of the whole series. The omniform demon makes the god or hero who falls under his power assume the most diverse zoological forms, the power of transforming into which he holds in possession, of which he holds the secret; but he almost always reserves for himself as his most favourite and privileged form that of the serpent. The devil, says the popular proverb, is known by his tail; and to show that women know more than the devil, it adds that they also know where the devil secretes his tail, or where he keeps his poison, for his poison and power to harm are in his tail. A devil without a tail would not be a real devil; it is his tail which betrays him; and this tail is the serpent's tail.[523] In the forty-fifth story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, the devil-serpent comes every night to visit the young widow in the form of her deceased husband, eats with her and sleeps with her till morning; she grows thinner every night, like a candle before the fire; but her mother counsels her to let a spoon drop when she is sitting at table, that, in lifting it, she may scrutinise the guest's feet; instead of his feet, she only sees his tail. Then the widow goes to the church to be purified.[524] In the Eddas, too, the serpent Lokis, who has taken the form of a horse, betrays himself by his feet.
The serpent-devil appears in special connection with the infernal waters (darkness of night and of winter, and cloudy sky), which conceal treasures, the pearl, the solar hero or heroine with the waters of youth and life. The serpent-devil draws to himself every beautiful thing, now to swallow them, now to preserve and guard them like a miser. The dragon became the symbol of the keeper back of the waters, of the guardian of the treasures, who devours or attracts to himself everything that shines. In Du Cange, the name of dracus is given to "species dæmonum qui circa Rhodanum fluvium in Provincia visuntur forma hominis, et in cavernis mansionem habent." In ancient Latin manuscript comments given by the same Du Cange, the devil is called by the name of hydros or aquatic serpent. Hincmarus Remensis believes that the devil is evoked from the waters,[525] and according to St Augustine, it was from the waters and from the illusions created in the water by demons that Numa derived his inspirations.[526] Hence the custom, so frequent in German and Slavonic countries,[527] of blessing the water to chase the monsters away from it; hence, also, the custom which I have observed in several parts of Russia, where the children, before they bathe in the rivers, and as soon as they put their feet in the water, make profound inclinations and the sign of the cross; hence, according to Du Cange, the god of the waters, Neptunus, in the Middle Ages, becomes under the name of Aquatiquus, a personification of the devil;[528] hence, also, the otter (enüdris) assumes a diabolical character in the Edda, where the Ases take its skin off and fill it with the gold taken from the dwarf-pike Andvarri, and in the sixth story of the first book of Afanassieff, where it destroys the beasts of the menagerie of a Tzar, and finally drags the third son of the Tzar Ivan under an enormous white stone (the snowy winter) in the lower world, where there are palaces of gold and silver and three beautiful girls, sisters of the monster otter, who sleeps in the sea, and snores so that he pushes the waves to a distance of seven versts, until Ivan, after having drunk the water of strength, cuts the monster's head off at a blow, after which it falls into the sea.
But to proceed in the order which we have hitherto generally followed, let us examine before all the tradition of the aquatic monster, the dragon or serpent, in Hindoo mythology.
The most important of the heroic undertakings accomplished by the Vedic god Indras is, as already remarked, that of killing the monster; and the enterprise of Indras against the monster is the theme of all the great popular Indo-Persian, Græco-Latin, Turko-Slavonic, Franco-Germanic, and Franco-Celtic epic poems, as also of the greatest number of the popular stories which are the real epic material of the new epopees. Indras, Vishṇus, Ahura-Mazda, Feridun, Apollo, Hêraklês, Kadmos, Jason, Odin, Sigurd, and several other gods and heroes, are celebrated for the undertaking of killing the serpent. Now, in the Vedic hymns the black monster (kṛishṇas), the growing monster (râuhin),[529] the full-grown monster (piprus), the monster coverer (vṛitras), the monster that dries up (çushṇas), the monster that keeps back (namućis), generally appears with the name and shape of a serpent, or if it has not always the form of a serpent, it is assimilated to it, and certainly inclines to become so from its office of a constrictor, its black colour, and other characteristics which it possesses in common with the serpent (Ahis).[530]