Forlong - Rivers of Life

Serpent and Phallic Worship.
the great loved river, OBI, which was held through untold ages by hardy fathers and
irrepressible children, rejoicing in the name of Ostiakes, and worshipping real serpents
and serpent images.
As all peoples have been more or less led and nurtured under Pythic standards, so
have they, their demi-gods, kings, and chiefs, called themselves after serpent names.
In our own island, not only does Draig in the old languages mean dragon, but “a fiery
serpent and THE SUPREME GOD;” the capitals and italics are not mine, but those of the
pious and orthodox clergyman, J. Bathurst Deane, in his volume on Serpent Worship.
Though the Roman power seems to have overthrown all ancient English standards, yet
the dragon remained the rallying sign and war-cry of the Welsh and Anglo-Saxons for
long centuries; and in 1195, Richard Cœur-de-Lion bore the dragon-standard as the
representative of northern Christianity 1 when warring with the iconoclastic
Mahomed, who similarly sinned, but on the female side, with fair Astarte, the pretty
Pythoness; be bore her emblem, the crescent Luna, as do all the armies of Islam
to this hour. A hundred years after our Richard, the dragon-standard of England
under Henry III. became a terror in the land; that king proclaimed that when unfurled
against his enemies, it meant “no quarter,” giving out then as his motto, “the dragon
knows not how to spare.” The “standard waa planted in the front of the king’s
pavillion, to the right of the other ensigns, and was kept unfurled day and night.”
Three hundred years after this, or in 1500, we find the wise and good king,
Henry VII., he who united the rival houses of York and Lancaster, introducing the
dragon into the royal arms of England, where it remained till the union with Scotland,
when the nondescript animal, with one horn in front—a sort of travesty on Siva and
Jove, who had a central eye in the forehead, took Draco’s place. 2 The same high and
heavenly reason is given for the introduction of the dragon into the imperial arms of
Britain, as we have in the case of the cross of Constantine. The heir-apparent of the
British throne beheld a “fiery meteor, in the form of a dragon, illumine the heavens
with portentous glare,” which. “astrologers unanimously expounded” as meaning that
he who saw this would one day rule, which he did on the death of his brother Aurelius,
when he at once fabricated two dragons in gold, one of which he pIaced in Winchester
Cathedral, and the other he carried before him as the standard of England. Our heir-
apparent is, it has been said, still bound to use this standard or insignia when transacting
official formalities in connection with his “Kymri.” 3 Nor were the Christian
churches here free from their old sin of inconsistency: they did in Rome as Romans
did. Du Fresne, quoted by the reverend writer of Serpent Worship, says that “in the
ecclesiastical processions of the Church of Rome an effigy of a dragon is wont to be
carried,” with holy and everlasting fire in his mouth. “On Palm Sunday there are
1 Serpent Worship, p. 256. The Bible of 1579 has a scaly Dragon on dexterside of the Royal Arms.
2 I suspect the horn is the Serpent—drawn straight—as he would appear in a front elevation.
3 Serpent Worship, Deane, 268-70, quoting authorities. The Winged Red Dragon represents Wales.
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