54 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



of Serpents. Krishna, one of the incarnations of the Deity, attacked 

 the serpent and destroyed it, and Hindoo sculpture represents him 

 with his feet on the serpent's head. Dr. Deane says, in his treatise 

 on serpent worship : " The progress of the sacred serpent from 

 Paradise to Peru is one of the most remarkable phenomena in 

 mythological history, and to be accounted for only on the supposition 

 that a tradition of the serpent in Paradise has been handed down 

 from generation to generation." 



Serpent worship existed amongst the mysteries of the ancient 

 Mexicans. There is in the Vatican, I believe, a remarkable painting 

 originally brought from Mexico, representing a woman in conversa- 

 tion with a serpent erect, to which was attached the Mexican legend 

 that the woman was the mother of mankind, and the serpent the 

 genius of evil. The originality of the painting is further borne out 

 by the existence of a colossal sculpture in that country of a serpent 

 swallowing a woman, to which the same legend is attached. 



Serpent worship can be distinctly traced throughout all Asia. 

 Living serpents were kept at Babylon as objects of adoration, and 

 to this the apocryphal story of " Bel and the Dragon " points. All 

 through the east is found in the Temples a mystic representation of 

 a circle with wings and a serpent passing through it. This circle, 

 when filled in with a human face, became the " Medusa " of the 

 Greeks. In Hindoostan to the present day, a custom prevails 

 similar to that spoken of in " Bel and the Dragon," when at the 

 " Festival of Serpents," " Kartik Purnima" night, every man sets 

 by a portion of his rice and saucer of milk, which he offers to the 

 snakes around his quarters as a propitiation to them. 



Airiongst the Scandinavians and Norsemen of old, their deity 

 " Thor," is represented casting down to the bottom of the sea the 

 great serpent Midgard. 



Amongst the ancient Druids the serpent was not omitted, as is 

 shown by the serpentine stone Temple of Abury still remaining, and 

 the Saurian mound at Loch Nell, near Oban in Scotland, identical 

 with similar remains discovered in Ohio and Wisconsin. In Ireland 

 its worship was not without its votaries. Ogmius, the chief object 

 of Celtic worship, was depicted with a huge club with serpents 

 twined round it and surmounted with wings like the caduceus of 

 Mercury. Dr. Christmas speaking of the serpent worship in Ireland, 

 says : " There is perhaps more truth in the legend of St. Patrick 



