Page:Star Lore Of All Ages, 1911.pdf/264

188 myth that the rising sun destroys the circumpolar stars; and Horus, the great god, the light of the heavens, is represented as destroying the hippopotamus or crocodile or Draco. The same idea has come down to us in the well-known myth of St. George and the Dragon.

In Greece Draco was called "Pytho"; in India "Kalli Nagu," meaning the banishment of Vishnu. In Anglo-Saxon chronicles he is referred to as "the fire drake," "the denier of God," "the unsleeping poison-fanged monster," and "the terrible enemy of man full of subtility and power." "The Dragon wing of night overspreads the earth" is an expression which shows the effect of imagination when aroused by the story of such monsters.

There seems to have been a special effort on the part of the originators of the constellations, at the outset almost, to symbolise by a star group the presence of the Evil One, ever watchful, ever vigilant, gazing down upon mortals from the high heavens, as a perpetual menace to evil-doers and a continual reminder of original sin.

The constellations Draco and Hercules are closely associated in ancient mythology, and Hercules is always represented as trampling the Dragon underfoot. These two constellations are in turn connected with Ophiuchus and Serpens, the figure of another giant overcoming a serpent, while he crushes the Scorpion under his feet. On the old maps the figures of these two famous giants appear head to head.

These similar and striking groups, placed so close together in the sky, show clearly that there was a deliberate intention on the part of the inventors of the constellations to emphasise the great fact of a struggle between mankind and serpentkind. There seems here an evident reference to God's interview with the serpent in the Garden of Eden. "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel."

There can be little doubt that in these star groups we