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INTRODUCTION TO MYTHOLOGY

The story of the slaying of the dragon is a much-distorted
rumour of this incident ; and in the process of elaboration the
incidents were subjected to every kind of interpretation, and
also confusion with the legendary account of the conflict
between Horus and Set." Thus the Great Mother became
confused with Horus as the avenger of the god, and legendary
complications caused Horus to be regarded as her son. But
the infamy of her deeds of destruction seems to have led to her
being further confused with the rebellious followers of Set
" Thus an evil dragon emerged from this blend of the attributes
of the Great Mother and Set."

It seems to me that this theory is much too complicated
and multiplies difficulties, as will be seen if we ponder for a
moment the history of the Mother-goddess in Mexico. In
Mexican myth the earth is represented as a monster, Cipactli,
the pictures of which suggest a crocodile, a swordfish, or a
dragon, probably a dragon, that great earth-monster common
to the mythologies of many races and most conveniently called
the * earth-dragon.' The sign * Cipactli ' became the first in the
calendar, and with it are connected the creative deities and the
Earth-Mother or Great Mother. Circumstances exist which
lend colour to the idea that, as in other countries, the Mexican
Mother was at one time regarded as forming the earth, the
soil. At the terrible and picturesque festival of the Xalaquia
(' She who is clothed with the soil ') a sacrificed virgin enriched
and recruited with her blood the frame of the worn-out goddess,
who had been, says Seler, "merged in the popular imagination
with the all-nourisher, the all-begetter, the earth." Perhaps the
best evidence that the Earth-Mother was evolved from the
earth-dragon is the colossal stone figure which once towered
above the entrance to the temple of Uitzilopochtli in Mexico
and is now housed in the museum of that city. In this figure,
as in a similar though less massive statue from Tehuacan,
the characteristics of the Cipactli animal are reproduced in a
wealth of scale, claw, and tusk. 