Note 16 — Chapter V · Chinese Dragon Lore

In Egypt Horus, Osiris, and Set were associated with the gazelle. Osiris was, in one of his forms, the River Nile. He was not only the Nile itself, but the controller of it; he was the serpent and soul of the Nile, and he was the ocean into which the Nile flowed, and the leviathan of the deep. In the Pyramid texts Osiris is addressed: “Thou art great, thou art green, in thy name of Great-green (sea); lo, thou art round as the Great Circle (Okeanos); lo, thou art turned about, thou art round as the circle that encircles the Hauneba (Ægeans)”.16 Osiris was thus the serpent (dragon) that, lying in the ocean, encircled the world. His son Horus is at one point in the Pyramid texts (Nos. 1505–8) narrative “represented as crossing the sea”.17 Horus was sometimes depicted riding on the back of a gazelle or antelope. The Egyptian antelope-god was in time fused with the serpent or dragon of the sea. Referring to the evidence of Frobenius18 in this connection, Professor Elliot Smith says that “in some parts of Africa, especially in the west, the antelope plays the part of the dragon in Asiatic stories”.19 When we reach India, it is found that the wind-god, Vayu, rides on the back of the antelope. Vayu was fused with Indra, the slayer of the dragon that controlled the water-supply, and, indeed, retained it by enclosing it as the Osiris serpent of Egypt, or the serpent-mother of Osiris, enclosed the water in its cavern during the period of “the low Nile”, before the inundation took place.20 After Osiris, as the water-confining serpent (dragon) was slain, the river ran red with his blood and rose in flood. Osiris, originally “a dangerous god”,21 was the “new” or “fresh” water of the inundation. “The tradition of his unfavourable character”, Breasted comments, “survived in vague reminiscences long centuries after he had gained wide popularity.” Osiris ultimately became “the kindly dispenser of plenty”, and his slayer, Set, originally a beneficent deity, was made the villain of the story and fused with the dragon Apep, the symbol of darkness and evil. This change appears to have been effected after the introduction of the agricultural mode of life. The Nile, formerly the destroyer, then became the preserver, sustainer, and generous giver of “soul substance” and daily bread.