Adonis, the son of the myrrh tree, was a Syrian form of Tammuz. Horus was the son of Osiris, whose body was enclosed by a tree after Set caused his death by setting him adrift in a chest. When Isis found the tree, which had been cut down for a pillar, the posthumous conception of the son of Osiris took place.[28] The Momotaro legend has thus a long history.
The friendly animals figure in the folk-tales of many lands. Momotaro’s fight for the treasure, including the cloak of invisibility, bears a close resemblance to Siegfried’s fight for the treasure of the Nibelungs.[29] In western European, as in Far Eastern lore, the treasure is guarded by dragons as well as by dwarfs and giants and other demons. When the dragon-slayer is not accompanied by friendly animals, he receives help and advice from birds whose language he acquires by eating a part of the dragon, or, as in the Egyptian tale, after getting possession of the book of spells, guarded by the “Deathless Snake”. When the Egyptian hero reads the spells he understands the language of birds, beasts, and fishes. The treasure-guarding dragon appears, as has been suggested, to have had origin in the belief that sharks were the guardians of pearl-beds and preyed upon the divers who stole their treasure. [[157]]
The beliefs connected with the life-giving virtues of the tree of the Mother Goddess were attached to shells, pearls, gold, and jade. The goddess was the source of all life, and one of her forms was the dragon. As the dragon-mother she created or gave birth to the dragon-gods. Dragon-bones were ground down for medicinal purposes; dragon-herbs cured diseases; the sap of dragon-trees, like the fruit, promoted longevity, as did the jade which the goddess had created for mankind.
The beliefs connected with jade were similar to those connected with pearls, which were at a remote period emblems of the moon in Egypt. In China the moon was “the pearl of heaven”. One curious and widespread belief was that pearls were formed by rain-drops, or by drops of dew from the moon, the source of moisture, and especially of nectar or soma. Pearls and pearl-shells were used for medicinal purposes. They were, like the sap of trees, the very essence of life—the soul-substance of the Great Mother.[30]
That the complex ideas regarding shells, pearls, dew, trees, the moon, the sun, the stars, and the Great Mother were of “spontaneous generation” in many separated countries is difficult to believe. It is more probable that the culture-complexes enshrined in folk-tales and religious texts had a definite area of origin in which their history can be traced. The searchers for precious stones and metals and incense-bearing trees must have scattered their beliefs far and wide when they exploited locally-unappreciated forms of wealth. [[158]]
[1] L. W. King, Babylonian Religion (London, 1903), p. 171. [↑]
[2] L. W. King, Legends of Babylon and Egypt (London, 1918), p. 136. [↑]