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religion is furnished than in the body of common notions which gather about the serpent. This branch points the way to an understanding of many of the features already exhibited in the foregoing discussion of worship, mythology, and symbolism. The qualities ascribed to this animal by the common understanding may be grouped in five classes, vii., wisdom (including powers of healing), guardianship and protection, paternity or transmigration, the command over fertility, and hostility. These several ideas may be contemporaneously current in the same region; that is, it may be conceived that the serpent is both the protector and the enemy of man at the same time and place. Yet it must not be forgotten that often one or the other ideas either of benefaction or of maleficence may be dominant. As an illustration of the wisdom of the serpent (cf. Gen. iii.; it there is not only the most cunning of animals, it knows the qualities of the fruit of the tree) it serves in part to note that it was associated with Athene, Apollo, and Hermes, in Egypt with Kneph, in India with Siva (patron of the learned Brahmans), with Buddha, who is said to have communicated his complete system only to the Nagas, a supposed snake-like tribe, and with Vishnu, while in Tibet one of the sacred books was popularly supposed to have been derived from the Nagas. In its capacity as a healer in Greece it was associated with Xaculapius, in Egypt with Isis, Harpocrates, and Serapis, with Rudra in India, and with Ramahavaly in Polynesia. Ainus pray to it for a woman in labor, and for help against ague. It is often regarded as knowing and applying the properties of healing herbs. Pliny (xxv. 14) tells that Tylon was fatally bitten by a serpent, that his sister Moir6 induced a giant to kill the animal, but that its mate brought a plant with which it touched the mouth of the dead snake and so revived it, and that Moire learned the lesson and restored her brother to life by the same means; similarly Appollodorus (Bibliotheke, III., iii. 1) asserts that Polyidus in the same way gave life back to Glaucus; other examples are noted in Pausanias, iii. 65 sqq. In India the same belief obtains, also that in its nests it preserves a stone which is a remedy for its own bite. In Calabar one means of ordeal is the fang of a snake introduced beneath the eyelid (T. J. Hutchinson, Impressions of West Africa, London, 1858). The part of the snake as guardian of the tree of life in widely variant cycles has already been noted--of this the garden of the Hesperides is but one case; in India it is regarded also as the guardian of hidden treasure, and Kipling makes use of this in his Jungle Book. It is supposed to secrete in its own head a valuable jewel, and even has one which it worships. The belief in it as protector of the household existed not only in Egypt (cf. E. W. Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, i. 289, London, 1836), but in India, Korea, China, and Japan, while to kill one is unlucky. The idea of the connection of the serpent with fertility is world-nzde. Sometimes, as in India, its action is adverse, and it restrains the showers till killed or forced by a god to release them. It is accredited with power over wind and rain, and in Chile was held to have caused the deluge. Yet in the Deccan offerings and prayers

ence the head of the enfolding serpent rests on the head of the Kronoa. The plaques of the bull-slaying Mithra show snakes in various positions (cf. F. Cumont, Mysteries of Mithra, pp. 21, 22, 23, 39, 55, 105, 106, 108, 110, 117, 124, 139, 151, 176, 222, Chicago, 1903). Cumont interprets the serpent in the Kronos figures as typifying the tortuous course of the sun in the ecliptic; but as Kronoa typifies time, it is better to take the presence of the serpent as merely intensive and suggesting unending time. In India the spectacled cobra is naturally most frequently represented, especially as an attendant upon deities. In this relation the animal is usually pictured with three, five, seven, or nine heads, the hood being inflated, and generally shielding the head of the deity. The god may, however, simply repose on the coils of the animal, or may be enfolded within them; or the serpent may form the adornment as necklace, armlet, or girdle, or may be held in the hand. Not merely are Brahman and Hindu gods represented ac protected by the snake, but also the Jina (see JAINISM) and the Buddha (see BUDDHISM). In some of the great temples almost every architectural possibility is seized for decoration with this figure, and this holds true not only for India, but for Burma, Java, and Ceylon, also for China and Japan, if the dragon be taken into account, while in similar situations in Mexico and Peru the same is found.

The connection of the serpent with the tree of life, alWy suggested by its presence in the garden of the'-Hesperides and with the golden fleece, is illustrated in Babylonia, and the connection

3. In Other of this cycle with the serpent in Gen. Lands. iii. has been too often exploited to need more than mention here. In this region it also appeared among the decorations of the approaches to temples and palaces (H. Gunkel, Schop fung and Chaos, p. 154, Gottingen, 1895), while it is striking that the caduceus (a staff wound with two snakes) is carried by Ishtar (cf. W. H. Ward, American Antiquarian, xx., 1898, p. 215), and this same serpent-staff appears on a vase of Gudea (H. Gressmann, Altorientalisehe Texte and Bilder, ii. 92, Tabingen, 1909). There come readily to mind the caduceus of Hermes in Greece, and the staff of lEsculapius twined with a single serpent. At Gournia in Crete the modern excavations have brought to light a goddess' image with serpents coiled about her; one at Cnossos is in the embrace of three, while a fourth projects its head above her tiara, and at Palaikastro a goddess holds a threefold serpent in her arms. It is but natural that the animal should appear on the coins of many cities. Thus a Tyrian coin carries a tree between two pillars or maZzeboth, and a snake twines about the tree; another coin bears the caduceus and also an altar, from the front corners of which snakes emerge; still another represents the Tyrian Hercules contending with the serpent; a coin of Berytus has a nude man (or god) between two snakes which form a single coil; and numerous coins bear designs which are but variants of these. Among cities which employed this animal on their coins, Pella and Adramyttium are representative.

V. In Folk-lore: No better illustration of the right of folk-lore as a handmaiden to the study of X.-24