move in herds across the fields of heaven; they give down their milk
in grateful rains and showers to refresh the thirsty earth.

We find the same event narrated in the folk-lore of the modern
European nations.

Says the Russian fairy-tale:

"Once there was an old couple who had three sons."

Here we are reminded of Shem, Ham, and Japheth; of Zeus, Pluto, and
Neptune; of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva; of the three-pronged trident of
Poseidon; of the three roots of the tree Ygdrasil.

"Two of them," continues the legend, "had their wits about them, but
the third, Ivan, was a simpleton.

"Now, in the lands in which Ivan lived _there was never any day, but
always night_. This was a _snake's doings_. Well, Ivan undertook to
kill the snake."

[1. Poor, "Sanskrit Literature," p. 236.]

{p. 243}

This is the same old serpent, the dragon, the apostate, the leviathan.

"Then came a _third_ snake with twelve heads. Ivan killed it, and
destroyed the heads, and immediately there was _a bright light_
throughout the whole land."[1]