the local embellishments until some other time.

The fundamental element in the dragon's powers is the control of water.
Both in its beneficent and destructive aspects water was regarded as
animated by the dragon, who thus assumed the role of Osiris or his enemy
Set. But when the attributes of the Water God became confused with those
of the Great Mother, and her evil avatar, the lioness (Sekhet) form of
Hathor in Egypt, or in Babylonia the destructive Tiamat, became the
symbol of disorder and chaos, the dragon became identified with
her also.

Similarly the third member of the Earliest Trinity also became the
dragon. As the son and successor of the dead king Osiris the living king
Horus became assimilated with him. When the belief became more and more
insistent that the dead king had acquired the boon of immortality and
was really alive, the distinction between him and the actually living
king Horus became correspondingly minimized. This process of
assimilation was advanced a further stage when the king became a god and
was thus more closely identified with his father and predecessor. Hence
Horus assumed many of the functions of Osiris; and amongst them those
which in foreign lands contributed to making a dragon of the Water God.
But if the distinction between Horus and Osiris became more and more
attenuated with the lapse of time, the identification with his mother
Hathor (Isis) was more complete still. For he took her place and assumed
many of her attributes in the later versions of the great saga which is
the nucleus of all the literature of mythology--I refer to the story of
"The Destruction Of Mankind".

The attributes of these three members of the Trinity, Hathor, Osiris,
and Horus, thus became intimately linked the one with the other; and in
Susa, where the earliest pictorial representation of a real dragon
developed, it received concrete form (Fig. 1) as a monster compounded of
the lioness of Hathor (Sekhet) with the falcon (or eagle) of Horus, but
with the human attributes and water-controlling powers which originally
belonged to Osiris. In some parts of Africa the earliest "dragon" was
nothing more than Hathor's cow or the gazelle or antelope of Horus
(Osiris) or of Set.

[Illustration: Fig. 1.--Early Representation of a "Dragon" Compounded of
the Forepart of an Eagle and the Hindpart of a Lion--(from an Archaic
Cylinder-seal from Susa, after Jequier).]

[Illustration: Fig. 2.--The Earliest Babylonian Co