Serpentine Overview
BY ALPER ÖZKAN (MSN/PhD I)
First things first: this is a bad day for me. Not only did I completely forget (due to the amount of work piled on me at the moment) about the fact that it's been two weeks since my last column and that I had to write another, but I also had the audacity to oversleep. This is mostly because I have the ability to completely ignore any daunting task until the last possible moment (essentially, I've mastered the art of procrastination), and this gives me great amounts of free time (to, say, oversleep) at the cost of having to work frantically for short periods. This also means that on this particular day, I have about half an hour to get the column done. Therefore, it will be wise to write about something I know well. I promised a mythology column earlier, and this semester we're having a course here at Bilkent about Germanic sagas with special focus on dragons (alas, I'm a PhD student and the course seems to be for undergraduates), so you'll have to contend with yet another dragon column. To spice things up a bit, I'll try my hand at comparative mythology this time around, so you'll get serpents and dragons from all over the world.
Quite obviously, the basic role given to serpents is that of the enemy. Indeed, there is a shared myth in many cultures about a hero or deity slaying a great serpent, which may date back to when the Indian and European populaces had not yet separated. Examples of this legend are many: Zeus fought and imprisoned Typhon, the hundred-headed father of monsters, under Mount Etna; the storm god Indra slayed the drought serpent Ahi Vritra to restore the flow of rivers that the snake had blocked; Thor is said to have fought and defeated the Midgard serpent during Ragnarok at the cost of his own life; the sun-god Ra was defended by Set against the snake Apophis during the former's daily journey through the underworld; Feridun took down the three-headed Azi Dahaka; Tarhunt killed Illuyanka by trickery; and Susanoo did very much the same to the eight-forked Orochi. (Wikipedia lists some pairs that I don’t recognize.) Curiously, certain elements are shared across many of those stories, most likely due to their common origin.
For one thing, the slayers of these serpents and dragons tend to be thunder gods. This is hardly surprising, as the Indo-European culture in which the myths first evolved had a chief sky-god called Dyeus -- or Dyeus Pater, as he was addressed -- and this name eventually diversified into that of such gods as Zeus, Jupiter, Tyr and Dispater (and "pater" is where we get the word "father"). Some of his attributes were also transferred to other deities, so if Dyeus was the originator of the serpent-slaying motif, then it's no surprise that the myth also tagged along with his evolution and passed to those gods. Another motif, shared between Hittite and Japanese myths of all things, was that the hero was initially unsuccessful in his efforts to slay the dragon and had to resort to a specific trick -- namely, getting the dragon drunk. Susanoo is said to have prepared eight vats of alcohol for the serpent to consume, and likewise Tarhunt's initial defeat led to him getting Illuyanka drunk before killing him. I haven't a clue as to how these two myths are related, so your guess is as good as mine!
Serpents, however, are also seen as protectors. Curiously, this trend is most clearly present in places with large numbers of serpents -- namely Egypt, India and Australia. In Egypt, the cobra-goddess Wadjet was of utmost importance and bestowed her protection on the country's rulers -- it is her image that is seen on the headdresses of the pharaohs. In India, many serpents were regarded as beneficial, especially naga kings such as Ananta Shesha and Vasuki, who were benevolent forces constantly aiding the devas. In Australia, while the serpent is often a shady character, he can also help those who know how to appease him. Perhaps such myths evolved because serpents, so common in those areas, were frequently observed and thus came to be respected due to their potent venom and skill at hunting, much in the way that lions and tigers are admired in other cultures as symbols of courage.
Anyhow, looks like I've reached the end of this page, so end the column I will -- you can recall many of the mythological figures mentioned from previous columns and, if you like, use Wikipedia to get an idea of the rest. For now, I'll hope I won't be crushed under the remaining pile of work.