n earlier one, becomes
rationalized in adaptation to its different environment. This process of
psychological transference is the explanation of the reference to
Elephantine as the source of the _d'd'_, and has no relation to
actuality. The naive efforts of Brugsch and Gauthier to study the
natural products of Elephantine for the purpose of identifying _d'd'_
were therefore wholly misplaced.]

[200: In Hartland's "Legend of Perseus" a collection of variants of this
story will be found.]

[201: In the version I have quoted from Erman he refers to "the god
Sektet".]

[202: _Op. cit. supra_.]

The Thunder-Weapon.[203]

In the development of the dragon-story we have seen that the instruments
of destruction were of a most varied kind. Each of the three primary
deities, Hathor, Osiris and Horus can be a destructive power as well as
a giver of life and of all kinds of boons. Every homologue or surrogate
of these three deities can become a weapon for dragon-destroying, such
as the moon or the lotus of Hathor, the water or the beer of Osiris,
the sun or the falcon of Horus. Originally Hathor used a flint knife or
axe: then she did the execution as "the Eye of Re," the moon, the fiery
bolt from heaven: Osiris sent the destroying flood and the intoxicating
beer, each of which, like the knife, axe and moon of Hathor, were
animated by the deity. Then Horus came as the winged disk, the falcon,
the sun, the lightning and the thunderbolt. As the dragon-story was
spread abroad in the world any one of these "weapons" was confused with
any of (or all) the rest. The Eye of Re was the fire-spitting
uraeus-serpent; and foreign people, like the Greeks, Indians and others,
gave the Egyptian verbal simile literal expression and converted it into
an actual Cyclopean eye planted in the forehead, which shot out the
destroying fire.

The warrior god of Babylonia is called the bright one,[204] the sword or
lightning of Ishtar, who was herself called both the sword or lightning
of heaven.

In the AEgean area also the sons of Zeus and the progeny of heaven may be
axes, stone implements, meteoric stones and thunderbolts. In a Swahili
tale the hero's weapon is "a sword like a flash of lightning".

According to Bergaigne,[205] the myth of the celestial drink _soma_,
brought down from heaven by a bird ordinarily called _cyena_, "eagle,"
is parallel to that of Agni, the celestial fire brought by Mataricvan.
This parallelism is even expressly s