Page:Myth, Ritual, and Religion (Volume 2).djvu/211

Rh In one version of the myth the slavery of Apollo in the house of Admetus was an expiation of the dragon's death. Through many of the versions runs the idea that the slaying of the serpent was a deed which required purification, and almost apology. If the serpent was really the deity of an elder faith, this would be intelligible, or, if he had kinsfolk, a serpent-tribe in the district, we could understand it. Apollo's next act was to open a new spring of water, as the local nymph was hostile and grudged him her own. This was an inexplicable deed in a sun-god, whose business it is to dry up rather than to open water-springs. He gave oracles out of the laurel of Delphi, as Zeus out of the oaks of Dodona. Presently Apollo changed himself into a huge dolphin, and in this guise approached a ship of the Cretan mariners. He guided, in his dolphin shape, the vessel to Crisa, the port of Delphi, and then emerged splendid from the waters, and filled his fane with light, a sun-god indeed. Next, assuming the shape of a man, he revealed himself to the Cretans, and bade them worship him in his Delphic seat as Apollo Delphinios, the Dolphin-Apollo.

Such is the ancient tale of the founding of the Delphic oracle, in which gods, and beasts, and men are mixed in archaic fashion. It is open to students to regard the dolphin as only one of the many animals whose earlier worship is concentrated in Apollo, or to take the creature for the symbol of spring, when