ous heroes and kings of antiquity 11 Many tradi-
the Turk, ancestor of all Turkish sovereigns 16
tions name them among the ancestors of heroes
The association of serpents with birth symbol-
and as mythical ancestors of tribal confederacies
ism occurs also, albeit in a different manner, in
and kingly dynasties 12 The classical author
the story of Prince Sayf al-Mulūk in the Alf layla
Herodotus reports that the ancient Scythians who
wa-layla The tale recounts how an aged childless
lived north of the Black Sea regarded themselves
ruler is advised by Solomon the Wise that, in
as descendants of the greatest of the Greek heroes,
order to bring about the birth of a prince, he must
Herakles/Hercules, and a woman with a serpent’s
cook the flesh of two serpents that appear by a
lower body ( Histories IV 8–9) 13 With this angui-
certain tree at noon and serve the dish to his
pede woman he engenders three sons, the young-
wife 17
est of whom, named Scythes (“the Scythian”), was
More often though, the dragon is known in its
the worthiest and became the first king of the
other function as the awful dragon of death On
Scythians 14 The story of the miraculous birth of
the way to his execution the mystic and theologian
the superhuman hero who issues from the
Manṣūr ibn Ḥusayn al-Ḥallāj (“the wool-carder,”
encounter of a princess with a serpent appears
244/857–309/922) from Ṭūr in Fars, is said to
also in one of the oldest recorded epic tales
have faced his impeding martyrdom by reciting
(bylina) compiled in the eighteenth century in
the following verses:
west Siberia 15 Among the tribal confederacies,
dynasties and heroes claiming their descent from
My friend doth unrelated stand to aught of ruth
Dahāk, the hominoid serpent of the ancient Ira-
or clemency:
nian epic past are, as mentioned earlier, the
From His own cup He bade me sup, for such is
Kushāṇas of the yuezhi confederacy, the Arme-
hospitality!
nians living in the region near Lake Sevan, the
But when the Wine had circled round, for sword
Islamic Sām dynasty of Ghūr as well as the hero
and [executioner’s] carpet called He
Who with the Dragon drinketh Wine in [the heat
Rustam and his descendants These claims are
of] Summer, such his fate shall be 18
surpassed in the Turkish epic Ṣaltūq-nāma (“Book
of Ṣaltuq”), in which the first ruler of the world,
The use of the dragon as metaphor for the inevi-
Eslem, son of Adam, becomes the father of Ẓaḥḥāk
table fate of death occurs in a passage of the
The doe has too narrow a womb [to permit it to give
13 Cf P’yankov, 2006, pp 505–11, esp pp 506–7
birth; therefore] when it crouches to give birth, I pre-
14 This myth was modified by Valerius Flaccus to the
pare for her a dragon that bites her belly so it grows
extent that the Scythians were said to be descendants of
slack and she gives birth
Colaxes (the youngest son of Targitaos who reigned in
Bava Batra 16b, cited after Morgenstern and Linsider, 2006,
Scythia was named Colaxais; Herodotus, Histories IV 5)
p 85 Cf Ginzberg, 1909–38, repr 1946 and 1955, vol 2,
and the anguipede earth-born maiden, and in the account
p 168
of Diodorus Siculus (II 43) according to which the same
11 Scipio Africanus (Livy IIVI 19 7), Alexander the Great
woman was impregnated by Zeus
15
(Plutarch, Life of Alexander II 4), the Messian hero Aris-
Jakobson and Szeftel, 1949, pp 13–87, esp 21, 64;
tomenes (Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio IV 14 7–8) and the
Schirmunski, 1961, pp 58–9 It is interesting that compa-
future emperor Augustus after his adoption by Julius Caesar
rable notions occur in early Christian gnostic writings, such
(Suetonius, Augustus 94 4), are said to have been born from
as a text entitled Baruch written by the second-century Chris-
the union of their mothers with a giant serpent or dragon Cf
tian gnostic Justin, which survives in summarised form in
Ferwerda, 1973, p 107; also Küster, 1913, p 112
the early third-century antiheretical work, Refutatio omnium
12 The Greek god Zagreus was born of the union of
haeresium (“Refutation of All the Sects”) of Hippolytus of
Persephone and Zeus who had taken the form of a dragon
Rome According to his recapitulation of the text, in the
(Nonnos, Dionysiaca V 562 564; VI 155–7) Pentheus, king of
beginning creation results of the marriage of a male divine
Thebes, was the son of Echion, “the serpent-man” (the name
principle, Elohim, the God of creation and Lord of heaven,
Echion being the male form of Echidna, the serpent-mon-
and a female principle, named Eden or Israel, the mother
ster; Euripides, Bacchae 537–44) The Greek hero Kadmos
earth, who is described as looking like a woman as far as
kills the drakōn that barred the way to the site of the future
the groin and a serpent below ( Refutatio omnium haeresium
city and then sowed its teeth in the earth, hence giving rise
5 24 2-3) Williams, 1996, pp 18–9, 37–9
to the Spartoi (“sown men”) who became the first Thebans
16 Mélikoff, 1960, vol 1, p 43 and n 1; Dedes, 1996,
It is moreover interesting to note that towards the end of his
p 29, n 80 For further examples in South Slavic epics, see
life both Kadmos and his wife Harmonia were changed into
Schirmunski, 1961, pp 28–30
serpents and lived among Encheleians (Ovid, Metamorphoses
17 Marzolph and van Leeuwen, 2004, pp 362–3 The
IV 576–600) On the Kadmos myth, see Fontenrose, 1959,
story goes back to the age-old belief that pregnancy could
repr 1980, pp 306–20; Astour, 1965, pp 156–61 Similarly,
be caused by ingesting magic food See Astour, 1965,
the Indian kings of Chhota Nāgpur claim origin from a nāga
pp 171–2
called Puṇḍarīka Vogel, 1929, p 35
18 Browne, 1920, vol 1, p 435; see also p 363
the dragon as symbol of transformation
197
Mathnawī, in which the mystic poet Jalāl al-Dīn
saying of the Prophet on the torments in Hell
Rūmī (604/1207–672/1273) allegorically states:
inflicted by dragons:
When Destiny comes, the wide spaces are nar-
Concerning the chastisement of the truth-con-
rowed A hundred ways and asylums may lie to
cealer in his grave: ninety-nine tinnīn s will be
left and right; yet they are all barred by Destiny,
given mastery over him Do you know what a
the invincible dragon 19
tinnīn is? It is a serpent There will be ninety-
nine serpents, each of which has nine heads: They
A related conceptualisation of the “invincible
will gnaw at him, eat at him and blow into his
dragon” appears not only in Arabic and Iranian
body until the day he is raised up 23
literature, but in a saying of the military com-
mander ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, a con-
yet another tradition speaks of the punishment
temporary of the Prophet Muḥammad, in which
for insolence against God:
he likens himself to the “inexorable serpent”:
as a black snake [that] winds itself around the
When others looked askance, I blinked not;
impudent man’s neck and kills him after forty
Then I partially closed my eyes, but not in wink-
days 24
ing [at the sight of danger]
This belief in the dragon as “inexorable death” is
you saw me return [to the charge] and continue
stil echoed in the popular culture of Iran, accord-
to dash forward
ing to which there is a serpent in every grave that
I support [equally well] good and evil, and am
wil torment the dead in proportion to the number
inexorable,
Like the serpent at the foot of the trees
of sins committed in life 25 Similarly, in popular
20
belief in present-day Afghanistan it is said that
Although the Qurʾān makes no allusion to Hell
fol owing burial the mythical angel ʿIzrāʾīl/ʿAzrāʾīl,
being populated by huge serpents, such a belief
who has authority and power over death, appears
is preserved in later traditions It is attested in a
and grips the tongue of the deceased for question-
ḥadīth by the tenth-century Ḥanafī jurist Abu
ing 26 This idea may reflect the Qurʾānic tradition
’l-Qāsim Isḥāq al-Samarqandī (d 342/953–4),
according to which the angel of death ʿIzrāʾīl
also known as al-Ḥakīm (“the Wise One”),
creeps into the dying man’s throat to draw out
according to which:
his spirit ( sūra 79) 27 In the same way, the four-
the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him,
teenth-century encyclopedian al-Damīrī relates
said that in Hell are snakes each as large as a
the interpretation of a dream according to which:
camel and the pain of their bite will last for forty
He who dreams of a serpent coming out of his
years 21
mouth while he is ill, will die, for that indicates
In his grave a sinner may be tortured by a serpent
his life which will have come out of his mouth 28
of fire which bites him until the day of judge-
The early fourteenth-century Syrian traditionist
ment 22 Another ḥadīth records a more explicit
Ibn Kathīr (d 774/1373) reports a ḥadīth on
19 Tr and ed Arberry, 1961, p 271
Abraham (recension A ch XVII) which is generally con-
20 Cited after al-Damīrī, Ḥayāt al-ḥayawān al-kubrā, tr
sidered to be a Jewish work, datable to the first century ad
Jayakar, 1906, vol 1, p 634
(cf Delcor, 1973, pp 63–5, 72, 76–8), when death comes to
21 Tr into Pers , ed Ḥabībī, A , Tehran, 1969, p 83, cited
fetch Abraham’s soul, he shows him seven flaming drakōn
after Daneshvari, 1993, p 18
heads as well as the faces of various poisonous serpents
22 Wensinck and Tritton, “ʿAdhāb al-ḳabr,” EI² I, 168b
In ch XIX, death explains the function of the faces as the
23 Chittick, 1992, p 90, 9–15
different manners of death, while the seven drakōn heads
24 Al-Qalyūbī, Aḥmad ibn Salāma, Nawādir, no 29, as
stand for death raging seven aeons long Similar associa-
cited in Ritter, 2003, p 183
tions of the Greek words drakōn and ophis with death and
25 Bess Donaldson (1938, repr 1973, p 168) remarks that
the underworld appear in the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch
this belief is mainly current “among the uneducated women ”
See Schlüter, 1982, pp 46–8 For traditions in which Rahav
26 Private communication A tradition connecting the
and Leviathan are identified with the angel of death, see
serpent with the moment of the death of a human being was
Ginzberg, 1909–38, repr 1946 and 1955, vol 1, p 40 and
also well-known in antiquity When a serpent passed through
n 187
a hole in a wall, the ancients would say that the soul was defi-
27 Cf Wensinck, “ʿIzrāʾīl,” EI² IV, 216b
nitely separated from the body and had started its descent
28 Tr Jayakar, 1906, vol 1, p 655 See also the trouble-
into the underworld Cf Porphyrios, Vita Plotini (II, 27)
some dream of Kanaʿān ibn Kūsh, the father of Namrūd
According to Pliny ( Naturalis Historia XVI 85 234), a draco
(the Nimrod of the Bible), in which his son is born and a
lived in a cave near the grave of Scipio Africanus the Elder to
snake enters his nose, an ominous sign which is interpreted
watch over his soul On the role of serpents as guardians of
to mean that his son will kill him Heller, “Namrūd, also
graves, see also Küster, 1913, pp 67–71 In the Testament of
Namrūdh, Nīmrūd,” EI² VII, 952b
198