The serpent of the water is also the serpent of the great sea upon which the earth rested. Sometimes the reptile lives in submarine infernal regions, and as the demon of the underworld it is sometimes the earth-shaker. The Greek demon or snake Poseidon, god of sea and springs, was an earth quake god. To the great half-serpent monster Typhon were ascribed numerous springs; he was also the cause of earthquakes, and when he buried himself in the earth he formed the bed of the Syrian Orontes. This river, which was otherwise called Drakon, TyphOn or Ophites, is known at the present day as the "river of the rebel" (Nahr El-tAsi). The waterspout, some times taken for a long-tailed dragon, is a huge sea-serpent, ac cording to the Wanika of East Africa (Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 292 seq.). In ancient Persia the rainbow was the celestial serpent ; and among some African tribes it is the subterranean wealth-conferring serpent, stretching its head to the clouds, and spilling the rain in its greedy thirst. An early Indian name of the Milky Way is "the path of the serpent" (Crooke i. 25), and a great dragon or serpent is often the cause of eclipses, so that in India, on the occasion of an eclipse, its attention can be attracted by bathing in a sacred stream, or by a ritual which includes the worship of the image of the snake-god (i. 22 sqq.). , Serpent and Parentage.—The folk-lore of the Old and New World contains many examples of supernatural conception, an idea which is supplemented by the actual living belief in the East that supernatural beings can be fathers (E. S. Hartland, Primitive Paternity; cf. his Legend of Perseus i. 121, etc). In Annam where water spirits may take the form of serpents or of human beings, two deified heroes were said to have been ser pents born of a childless woman, who drank from a bowl of water into which a star had fallen. It was a mediaeval belief that the household snake, if not propitiated, could prevent conception, and in Bombay barrenness is sometimes attributed to a serpent which has been killed by the man or his wife in a former state of their existence. Hence the demon is laid to rest by burning the serpent-image with due funereal rites. In the sanctuary of Aesculapius at Epidaurus women were visited in their dreams by a serpent—the reputed father of the child that was born, and elsewhere Sicyon who had such a progenitor was regarded as the son of the divine healer. Similar also was the origin of Augustus in a temple of Apollo, the god who had his tame serpents in the grove on Epirus. Further, as the serpent-father of Alex ander the Great came with a healing-root to cure his general Pompey (Cicero, De div. ii. 66), so in an Indian story the son of a king of serpents and of a virgin (or, in a variant form, a widow) was succoured in warfare by his sire (Fergusson, p. 266). In India, China and Greece the serpent origin of kings and rulers is well-known.
There are many instances of tribes or clans named after the serpent. These are not necessarily examples of nicknames, since a relationship between the two often shows itself in custom or belief. This feature sometimes applies, also, to cases where the clan does not bear the serpent name. In accordance with universal ideas of the reality of the "name," there are tribes who will refrain from mentioning the serpent. Also there are clans like the American Apaches and Navahos who will neither kill nor eat rattlesnakes. Where the reptile is venerated or feared it is usually inviolable, and among the Brassmen of the Niger the dangerous and destructive cobra was especially protected by an article in the diplomatic treaty of 1856 for the Bight of Biafra (J. F. Maclennan, Studies, ii. 524). The North American Indians fear lest their venerated rattlesnake should incite its kinsfolk to avenge any injury done to it, and when the Seminole Indians begged an English traveller to rid them of one of these troublesome intruders, they scratched him—as a matter of form—in order to appease the spirit of the dead snake. The snake-tribes of the Punjab clothe and bury a dead serpent ; and elsewhere in India when one is killed in the village a copper coin is placed in its mouth and the body ceremonially burned to avert evil. These snake-tribes claim to
be free from snake-bite, as also the ancient Psylli of Africa and the Ophiogenes ("serpent born") of Cyprus who were sup posed to be able to cure others. This power was claimed like wise by the Marsians of ancient Italy, and is still possessed by the snake-clan of Senegambia. In Kashmir the serpent-tribes became famous for medical skill in general, and they attributed this to the health-giving serpent (J. Fergusson, Tree and Serpent Worship [1873], p. 26o). Moreover, the Psylli would test the legitimacy of their new-born by exposing them to serpents which would not harm those of pure birth, and a similar ordeal among the Ophiogenes of Asia Minor showed whether a man was really of their kin (Strabo, xiii.
14). This peculiar kinship between serpent-clans and serpents can be illustrated from Sene gambia, where a python is supposed to visit every child of the python-clan within eight days of birth, apparently as a sign of recognition.
A kindred belief is that which regards the household snake an agreeable guest, if not a guardian spirit. In Sweden, even in the i6th century, such snakes were virtually household gods and to hurt them was a deadly sin. Among the old Prussians they were invited to share an annual sacrificial meal, and their refusal was a bad sign. Mohammed is said to have declared that the house-dwelling snakes were a kind of jinn; and, certainly, the heathen Arabs regarded them as malevolent or benevolent demoniacal beings (Noldeke, on Arab serpent-lore, Zeit. f . V Olkerpsych i. 412 sqq.) Among the Romans every place had its genius, also in the form of a serpent—cf. the doubt of Aeneas (Virgil Aen. v. 84 sqq.)—and household snakes were lodged and fed in vast numbers. They were the guardian-spirits of men and families, and stories are told of the way in which human life depended upon the safety of the reptile.
As a chthonic animal the serpent has often been regarded as an embodiment of the soul of the dead. Grimm's story of king Gunthram tells how, while he slept, his soul in serpent-form visited a mountain full of gold (Paulus Diac. iii. 34), and Porphyry relates that a snake crawled from beneath the bed of Plotinus at the moment of the philosopher's death. In Bali near Java, where the Naga-cult flourishes, a serpent is carried at the funeral ceremonies of the Kshatriya caste and burned with the corpse. Among many African tribes the house-haunting serpents are the dead, who are therefore treated with respect and often fed with milk.
In Greece, however, the dead man became a chthonic daemon, potent for good or evil; his natural symbol as such, often figured on tombs, was the snake. "The men of old time," as Plutarch observed, "associated the snake most of all beasts with heroes," and in Photius the term "speckled hero" thus finds an explanation. At the battle of Salamis the serpent which appeared among the ships was taken to be the hero Cychreus. These heroes might become objects of cult and local divinities of healing; people would pass their tombs in awe, or resort thither for divination or for taking oaths (Jane Harrison, Journ. of Hell. Studies xix. 204 sqq.). In Egypt not only are there serpents of the houses, but each quarter in Cairo had a serpent-guardian. This is said also of the villages and districts of Armenia, and Buddhist legends affirm it for India. The Sati (Suttee) wife immolated to accompany her de ceased husband often became the guardian of the village, and on the Sati shrine a snake may be represented in the act of rising out of the masonry (Crooke, i. 187 seq.). Athene ("the Athenian one") was primarily the guardian spirit of Athens, and at the Erechtheum her sacred serpent (apparently known to the 3rd cen tury A.D.), was fed monthly with honey-cakes; when, during the Persian War, it left the food untouched it was taken as a sign that the protectors had forsaken the city. At Lebadeia in the shrine of Trophonios and elsewhere serpents gave oracles.