Note 5 — Chapter I · Nature

Next we read that the word of God Almighty came in secret to Gabriel, saying, “Take me down the iron staff of the ‘Creed’ which dangles at the gate of heaven, and kill me this serpent Sakatimuna.”5 Gabriel did so, and the serpent brake asunder, the head and forepart shooting up above the heavens, and the tail part penetrating downwards beneath the earth.6 The rest of the account is taken up with a description, that need not here be repeated, of the transformation of all the various parts of the serpent’s anatomy, which are represented as turning with a few exceptions into good and evil genii.