The Nile god, Knum, Lord of Elephantine, was reputed to have formed the world of alluvial soil. The coming of the waters from Elephantine brought life to the earth.
[374] In the Babylonian story, Bēl "bade one of the gods cut off his head and mix the earth with the blood that flowed from him, and from the mixture he directed him to fashion men and animals" (King, "Babylonian Religion," p. 56). Bēl (Marduk) represents the Egyptian Horus who assumes his mother's rôle as the Creator. The red earth as a surrogate of blood in the Egyptian story is here replaced by earth and blood.
But Marduk created not only men and animals but heaven and earth also. To do this he split asunder the carcase of the dragon which he had slain, the Great Mother Tiamat, the evil avatar of the Mother-Goddess whose mantle had fallen upon his own shoulders. In other words, he created the world out of the substance of the "giver of life" who was identified with the red earth, which was the elixir of life in the Egyptian story. This is only one more instance of the way in which the same fundamental idea was twisted and distorted in every conceivable manner in the process of rationalization. In one version of the Osirian myth Horus cut off the head of his mother Isis and the moon-god Thoth replaced it with a cow's head, just as in the Indian myth Ganesa's head was replaced by an elephant's.
[375] See Frazer, op. cit., p. 9.
[376] Compare with this the story of Picus the giant who fled to Kirke's isle and there was slain by Helios, the plant μῶλυ springing from his blood (A. B. Cook, "Zeus," p. 241, footnote 15). For a discussion of moly see Andrew Lang's "Custom and Myth".
[377] Frazer, p. 6.
[378] In Socotra a tree (dracæna) has been identified with the dragon, and its exudation, "dragon's blood," was called cinnabar, and confused with the mineral (red sulphide of mercury), or simply with red ochre. In the Socotran dragon-myth the elephant takes the hero's rôle, as in the American stories of Chac and Tlaloc (see Chapter II). The word kinnabari was applied to the thick matter that issues from the dragon when crushed beneath the weight of the dying elephant during these combats (Pliny, XXXIII, 28 and VIII, 12). The dragon had a passion for elephant's blood. Any thick red earth attributed to such combats was called kinnabari (Schoff, op. cit., p. 137). This is another illustration of the ancient belief in the identification of blood and red ochre.
[379] "Mythologie des Plantes," Vol. II, p. 101.
[380] In an interesting article on "The Water Lilies of Ancient Egypt" (Ancient Egypt, 1917, Part I, p. 1) Mr. W. D. Spanton has collected a series of illustrations of the symbolic use of these plants. In view of the fact that the papyrus- and lotus-sceptres and the lotus-designs played so prominent a part in the evolution of the Greek thunder-weapon, it is peculiarly interesting to find (in the remote times of the Pyramid Age) lotus designs built up into the form of the double-axe (Spanton's Figs. 28 and 29) and the classical keraunos (his Fig. 19).
[381] The Babylonian magic plant to prolong life and renew youth, like the red mineral didi of the Egyptian story. It was also "the plant of birth" and "the plant of life".