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Thor and the Ouroboros (The Cosmic Double-Death of Re-Creation: Part 2)

November 29, 2007 at 11:39 pm by mahud

Part two of the current series The Cosmic Double-Death of Re-Creation.

Read The Genesis Protevangelium (The Cosmic Double-Death of Re-Creation: Part 1)

Thor and the Midgard Serpent

A brief description of Thor’s cosmic duel with the Midgard serpent is found in both the Elder/Poetic/Saemundar Edda (Voluspa 56) and the Younger/Prose/Snorri’s Edda (Gylfaginning 51), dating from 13th century A.D (containing material dating back to the 9th century A.D). It is within the larger setting of the apocalyptic battle called Ragnarok (Doom of the Gods), that Thor is said to ultimately destroy the Midgard serpent. After striking the fatal blow, Thor, engulfed by the serpent’s venomous breath, manages to walk nine steps, before he himself falls to the ground and dies. The Midgard Serpent (also known as Jormungand) is described in various texts as surrounding the whole world and biting its own tail (Voluspa 50; Gylfaginning 34, 48; Skaldskaparmal 4; Hymiskvida 22; Husdrapa 4). The ocean dwelling Midgard serpent can be compared with the Greek God Oceanus (the river Ocean) said to encircle the world ^1., as well as the widespread mythical motif of the tail biting serpent or dragon (often encircling the world), popularly known by the Greek name of Ouroboros, meaning ‘tail devourer’.

The Ouroboros

While the world encircling serpent is symbolic of the cosmic space, the Ouroboros is also emblematic of revolving time, comparable to the lunar cycle, which is the basis for the mythological cosmic cycle of time, that, in the Norse myth, will finally complete it’s rotation at Ragnarok, the threshold period between destruction and re-creation. The cosmic threshold of death and life further corresponds with the disappearance and reappearance of the moon, as it wanes and waxes, and is also the point where the circular serpent’s tail (the end) and head (the beginning) meet.

According to Egyptologist Eric Hornung, in ancient Egypt the Ouroboros was known by the name ‘He who hides the hours’ (jmn-wnwt), associating the serpent with the notion of time, and later came to be called ‘tail-in-mouth’ (sd-m-r’). From early on, the Egyptian Ouroboros represented both the existence of space and time encapsulated by the unbounded realm of non-existence ^2.. In The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife, Hornung mentions an Ouroboros serpent called Mehen surrounding both the feet and head of large representation of a God—possibly a fusion of the Gods Re and Osiris— in the second gilded shrine of Tutankhamen. According to Hornung it is the earliest Egyptian depiction of an Ouroboros, and both it and the God symbolize the beginning and end of time ^3.. The Gods Re and Osiris are respectively associated with neheh and djet, the twin concepts of Egyptian time. Neheh is frequently regarded as future time, and the cyclic patterns of nature, including the seasons and the rising and setting sun. Djet is similarly conceived as past time and is linear ^4.. Professor of Egyptology Jan Assmann, considers neheh as time which ‘comes’, whereas djet is time that ‘remains.’ Having reached perfection through the passing of neheh, djet continually exists in an unmoving state ^5.. According Francoise Dunand and Christiane Zivie-Coche, neheh is symbolized in Ptolemaic texts by a falcon within a sun disc, while Djet is represented by an image of a serpent coiled around the corspe of a mummy or Osiris, which is, they write, the “prototype of the ouroboros.” Both concepts of time consist of millions of millions of years that will one day cease to exist, returning the cosmos back to it primordial state ^6..

An early representation of the Ouroboros is found on a Chinese pot (Yang-shao culture) dating from 4500 B.C. The body of a snake, or lizard-like creature, with two front legs, is bent around twice in the form of a triangle, with its tail brought up to the tip of the creature’s mouth. It has four curved lines across its neck, like rings, and the body length is halved by a decorative cross-hatch pattern from the base of the neck downwards, while the second half is painted a solid dark colour to the tip of its tail, which, Balaji Mundkur suggests, may represent the revolving symbolism of light/day and dark/night, or the waxing and waning of the moon. Mundkur compares this cyclic motif with a more familiar circular representation of a dragon biting its own tail, found on the base of a Chinese bronze vessel, dating to the late second century B.C (Western Chou period). Arranged along the Ouroboros’ body from the neck to almost the tip of the tail are fourteen decorative semi-circular patterns, that, Mundkur comments, correspond with fourteen days of the bright period of a lunar cycle, while the decreasing size of each of the patterns toward the point where the mouth of the dragon devours its tail, suggest the waning and eventual disappearance (swallowing) of the moon ⁷.

Lunar Death and Transformation

Klaus Antoni mentions another Chinese bronze vessel (Shang Dynasty), depicting a hare issuing from the mouth of a dragon, in connection with the Japanse myth (Izumo Cycle) of Okuninushi’s encounter with the hare ^8.. The lunar hare is known to many cultures from around the world, owing to the markings on the moon resembling an image of a rabbit or hare. In China, the lunar hare lived on the moon pounding medicinal plants with his pestle and mortar into the elixir of immortality/longevity, while in Japan the hare pounded rice to make mochi (rice cake) ^9.. In the Japanese tale, the Hare needed to cross an ocean and managed to convince some sea monsters (or crocodiles) to arrange themselves in a row, under the pretense that he wanted to count them. The hare had almost reached the opposite shore of the ocean when he admitted to the final sea monster that it was just a ruse to cross over to the other side, and the sea monster tore the hare’s skin from his body. The hare encounters Okuninushi’s eighty brothers, who advise the hare to heal itself in the sea, but the salt water only made the hare’s skin worse. Okuninushi advices him to roll in the pollen of some healing flowers, and the hare is healed. In reward for Okuninushi kindness, the hare predicts that he, rather than his cruel brothers, will marry the princess Yagami, who they were travelling to meet, which according to Antoni, leads eventually (after being killed and restored to life twice as well as escaping from the realm of death) to Okuninushi becoming ‘Okuninushi’ (Great Land Master), the originator of the human world. Antoni compares the skinning of the hare, who is symbolic of the moon, and his restoration, with the lunar cycle, and its connection with the cyclic nature of death and new life, a “Cosmic puzzle,” that Okuninushi alone could solve ^10..

It is worth quoting Plutarch’s Isis and Osiris at this point, who wrote that it was the belief of some Egyptians that the life of Osiris (The dying god of Egyptian mythology) was connected with the cycle of the moon:

Some say that the years of Osiris’s life, others that the years of his reign, were twenty-eight; for that is the number of the moon’s illuminations, and in that number of days does she complete her cycle. The wood which they cut on the occasions called the “burials of Osiris” they fashion into a crescent-shaped coffer because of the fact that the moon, when it comes near the sun, becomes crescent-shaped and disappears from our sight. The dismemberment of Osiris into fourteen parts they refer allegorically to the days of the waning of that satellite from the time of the full moon to the new moon. And the day on which she becomes visible after escaping the solar rays and passing by the sun they style “Incomplete Good”; for Osiris is beneficent, and his name means many things, but, not least of all, an active and beneficent power, as they put it.

(Plutarch Isis and Osiris 42)

The dismemberment of Osiris into fourteen parts by the God Set, recalls the fourteen ever-decreasing ‘moon markings,’ on the bottom of the Chinese bronze vessel (See above), before being finally devoured (or almost devoured like the hare in the Okuninushi myth) by the Ouroboros dragon. Similarly, when Osiris wife, the Goddess Isis, restored Osiris’ body she was unable to recover his penis (the fourteenth part), which, according to Plutarch, had been eaten by an Oxyrhynchus fish ^11., functioning, it appears, as an Egyptian counterpart of the ocean serpent. The “crescent-shaped coffer,” mentioned by Plutarch, symbolic of the crescent moon, is the sarcophagus that Set used, along with seventy-two conspirators (counterparts of the 80 brothers of Okuninushi), to trap Osiris before casting him upon the Nile, where he floated out to sea. Osiris’ coffin is one of numerous oceanic vessels that transports its passengers between the waxing and waning moons, across the ocean of death and life, and from one lunar-cosmic cycle to another, such as the Ark of Noah. In Chinese mythos, as shown by Klaus Antoni, it is the lunar boat that ferries the dead into the afterlife ^12.. In Hindu mythology and Iconography, it is the God Vishnu Anantasayin, ‘He who reclines (or sleeps), upon Ananta (endless),’ the multi-headed serpent who floats in the midst of the cosmic ocean. In this state, between the countless cosmic cycles (Kalpa) of destruction and recreation, Vishnu fully absorbs all existence, before he begins the cosmos anew. His wife, Laksmi, sits at the end of the serpent couch, massaging Vishnu’s feet ^13..

Thor’s Fishing Trip

Another mythic episode recounts Thor’s earlier encounter with the Midgard serpent, when he accompanied the giant Hymir on a fishing trip (Gylfaginning: 48). Using an ox’s head as bait, Thor lures the World Serpent, whose jaw becomes caught in the hook. The Serpent tries to escape, but Thor summoning his fierce strength, pushed down so hard with his feet, that they crashed through the bottom of the boat, and grazed the ocean floor. They glared at one another and the Midgard Serpent rose upwards in a cloud of venom, turning the giant Hymir yellow with fear. Thor raised his hammer to strike the serpent, but Hymir (according to Snorri’s version) cut the line, and the serpent disappeared in the ocean depths. In the Hymiskvida, Thor Strikes the serpent a fierce blow to the head, while in the Husdrapa he possibly decapitates him. According to Snorri’s version, after the giant had cut the fishing line, Thor let loose his hammer after the fleeing serpent, and it was the belief of some (states Snorri) that the serpent’s head was struck off. Angrily, Thor turned on the giant and struck him on the side of his head, knocking him overboard, “and Thor saw the soles of his feet.” Thor fishing for the Midgard serpent is pictured on an 11th century rune-stone at Altuna church in Uppland Sweden. Thor is depicted standing alone in a high-prowed boat, with his hammer Mjolnir in his upraised right hand, while in his left hand he holds a fishing line with an ox’s head attached, dangling as bait for the World Serpent coiled below. Thor’s foot can also be seen protruding and exposed below, having crashed through the hull with the God’s mighty force ^14.. The Midgard serpent is also shown on a 17th century Icelandic manuscript. Here, the lower portion of the World Serpent’s body is arched above the head of the ox, while the serpent’s giant head surges upward in an attempt to devour the ox’s head. In this depiction the Midgard Serpent has two front claws, like the Ouroboros image from the Chinese pot (See Above) ^15..

A parallel iconographic representation of a fishing God was also known to Medieval Christianity, based on a theological idea for salvation dating back to the Church Fathers, particularly Gregory of Nyssa (4th Century A.D), and developed by Gregory the Great (6-7th Century A.D). An illustration from the Hortus Deliciarum of the Abbess Herrad of Landsberg (12th Century A.D) shows God the Father holding a fishing line, which is symbolic of Christ’s human descent, with Jesus as bait hanging from a fishhook in the shape of a cross. The Leviathan (who is the devil), the sea monster from the Old Testament (Job 41:1), deceived by the ‘weakness’ of Christ’s human incarnation, has taken the bait, and his mouth is pierced by the concealed divinity of the fishhook ^16..

Examining the various mythological motifs contained within the tale of Thor fishing and catching the Midgard serpent in the light of the aforementioned myths and images, it is not difficult to see a possible underlying cosmic theme, much like Thor’s battle with the Midgard serpent at Ragnarok. First, we have a Serpent and Ocean Monster attempting to devour the head of the ox, like the Ouroboros swallowing the moon on the Chinese bronze vessel, which has already been compared with the Devouring of the Hare’s fur in the Japanese myth and the swallowing of Osiris’ phallus by a fish, along with their apparent lunar associations. The Ox and Bull, like the Hare, are also lunar animals, due to their horns being reminiscent of the waxing and waning crescent moon. In the Zoroastrian Bundahishn (The Creation), the created order is inadvertently set in motion by the evil Angra Mainyu, who, in an attempt to corrupt Ahura Mazda’s perfect creation, slays the primal ox whose seed gives birth to all living things (10.1-4; 14.1-5) through the life generating power of the moon. Similarly at the end of time, the Zoroastrian cosmic saviour Saoshyant will sacrifice another bull called Hadhayosh and mix the creature’s fat with haoma (Vedic: soma) to create Hush, the food of immortality (30.25). In Mithraism, the Taruoctony depicts the God Mithras slaying the Bull (who is identified with the Goddess Luna) within the cosmic world cave. Thor’s ruse to catch the Midgard Serpent with the ox’s head, like Angra Mainyu (or the Leviathan), can also be understood as an inadvertent act on the behalf of the serpent, to become an unwilling participant in the regenerative power of a new creation. The unbridled serpent is the dissolution of the creative order and seeks to devour the cosmos, but in the very act of swallowing, the monster regenerates itself, like the Ouroboros, reestablishing the cosmic order and setting in motion another cycle of existence.

At Ragnarok, Thor sacrifices himself, which is parallel to the sacrifice of the ox head. In the Husdrapa (4), Thor’s head is described as shining like the Moon as he stared into the eyes of the world encircling serpent, associating Thor’s head with the vital head of the sacrificial ox. And so we have a cosmic sacrificial act binding the identities of the God, the lunar ox head and the World Serpent who all become one in death to create new life. The giant Hymir is also a part of the regenerative picture. Just as Thor strikes the serpent’s head, he strikes the giant’s head also, and knocking him overboard is swallowed by the ocean, but not before Thor catches sight of the soles of his feet. Both the head and the feet symbolize the beginning and end of the lunar-cosmic cycle unified through the sacrifice. Also, Thor’s feet became exposed in the ocean, when they plunge through the bottom of the Boat (which is in comparison with the examples cited above, another lunar vessel of death and recreation). The symbolism of the feet is also part of the iconography of Vishnu Anantasayin (See above). The nine footsteps of Thor are also related. They are the footsteps of creation and establishing order out of chaos. The nine steps of Thor, I believe, represent the God traversing the body of the cosmic serpent, joining the head with the tail, and through death, setting the universe in motion. In Norse cosmology the universe is comprised of nine realms.

We can now briefly return to the Protevangelium of Genesis, foretelling that the seed (Identified with the Messiah) will strike the serpent’s head and the serpent will strike its (the seed) heel, and see a striking comparison with the mythos of Thor and the Midgard serpent. Also striking is the rendering of the prophecy as found in the Targum Onkelos:

He will remember what you did to him in the beginning, and you shall be observing him in the end.

“The End” is the end of the current cosmic order when, in Jewish tradition the Messiah with Return, a day that is known as ‘Ikveta D’Meshicha’, The Heels (or footsteps) of the Messiah, who will likewise traverse the circle of the serpent, returning all things back to “the beginning.”

Finally, the idea of the unification of the beginning and end of all things in a life generating cycle, which, as in Klaus Antoni’s analysis of the myth of Okuninushi, is a “Cosmic puzzle,” that the cosmic hero alone can solve, may also go some way in explaining the enigmatic saying attributed to Alcmaeon of Croton, who was a student of Pythagoras;

“Men die because they cannot join the end to the beginning” (frag.2DK).

Part Three

In part three I’ll be looking at the Irish Celtic myth of Diarmaid’s encounter with the Boar of Ben Gulbain, and the role of the Cosmic Boar in Hindu Mythology.

Footnotes

1. 1: Aeschylus: Prometheus Bound; Orphic Hymn: To Oceanus; Ovid: Fasti (5th Century B.C - 1st Century AD). The classic texts can also be viewed at The Theoi Project: Oceanus
2. 2: Hornung, Erik, 1996, ‘Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many‘, p.179 (Cornell University Press)
3. 3: Hornung, Erik, 1999, ‘The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife‘, p.78 (Cornell University Press)
4. 4: Traunecker, Claude, 2001, ‘The Gods of Egypt‘, p.37 (Cornell University Press); Taylor, John H, 2001, ‘Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt‘, p.31 (University of Chicago Press); Rooney, Caroline, 2000, ‘African Literature, Animism and Politics‘, p.182-183 (Routledge); and Dunand, Francoise & Zivie-Coche, Christiane, 2005, ‘Gods and Men in Egypt: 3000 BCE to 395 CE‘, p.69-70 (Cornell University Press)
5. 5: Assmann, Jan, 2001, ‘The Search for God in Ancient Egypt‘, p.75-76 (Cornell University Press)
6. 6: Dunand, Francoise & Zivie-Coche, Christiane, 2005, ‘Gods and Men in Egypt: 3000 BCE to 395 CE‘, p.69-70 (Cornell University Press)
7. 7: Mundkur, Balaji, 1983, ‘The Cult of the Serpent: An Interdisciplinary Survey of Its Manifestations and Origins‘, p.75-76 (SUNY Press)
8. 8: Antoni, Klaus, 1982, ‘Death and Transformation: The Presentation of Death in East and Southeast Asia (Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 41, No. 2)‘, p.157 (Nanzan University) [pdf file]
9. 9: Lang, Andrew, ‘Custom and Myth‘, p.132 (Adamant Media Corporation); Varner, Gary R, 2007, ‘Creatures in the Mist‘, p.173 (Algora Publishing); Hall, James, 1994, ‘Illustrated Dictionary of Symbols in Eastern and Western Art‘, p.28 (Westview Press); Volker, T, 1975, ‘The Animal in Far Eastern Art‘, p.93 (BRILL); Gunde, Richard, 2002, ‘Culture and Customs of China‘, p.207 (Greenwood Press); & Williams, Charles Alfred Speed, 1976, ‘Outlines of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives‘, p.221 (Courier Dover Publications)
10. 10: Antoni, Klaus, 1982, ‘Death and Transformation: The Presentation of Death in East and Southeast Asia (Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 41, No. 2)‘, p.155-157 (Nanzan University).
11. 11: Knapp, Bettina Liebowitz, 1997, ‘Women in Myth‘, p.10 (SUNY Press); Hart, George, 1990, ‘Egyptian Myths‘, p.41 (University of Texas Press); Hooke, Samuel Henry, 2004, ‘Middle Eastern Mythology‘, p.68 (Courier Dover Publications); & Budge, Ernest Alfred Wallis, ‘The Gods of the Egyptians or Studies in Egyptian Mythology: Volume 2‘, p.382 (Adamant Media Corporation)
12. 12: Antoni, Klaus, 1982, ‘Death and Transformation: The Presentation of Death in East and Southeast Asia (Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 41, No. 2)‘, p.148-149 (Nanzan University).
13. 13: Carman, John & Narayanan, Vasudha, 1989, ‘The Tamil Veda: Pillan’s Interpretation of the Tiruvaymoli‘, p. 288 (University of Chicago Press); Balasubramaniam, R, 2005, ‘Story of the Delhi Iron Pillar‘, p.20 (Foundation Books); Hiltebeitel, Alf, 1991, ‘The Cult of Draupadi‘, p.363 (University of Chicago Press); Holm, Jean & Westerdale Bowker, John, 1994, ‘Picturing God‘, p.79 (Continuum International Publishing Group); & Boner, Alice, 1990, ‘Principles of Composition in Hindu Sculpture: Cave Temple Period‘, p.140 (Motilal Banarsidass Publ.)
14. 14: Sawyer, Birgit, 2003, ‘The Viking-Age Rune-Stones: Custom and Commemoration in Early Medieval Scandinavia‘, p.126-127 (Oxford University Press); Graham-Campbell, James, 2001, ‘The Viking World‘, p.181 (frances lincoln ltd); Acker, Paul & Larrington, Carolyne, 2002, ‘The Poetic Edda: Essays on Old Norse Mythology‘, p.123 (Routledge); Sawyer, P. H, 1989, ‘Kings and Vikings: Scandinavia and Europe, A.D. 700-1100‘, p.132 (Routledge)
15. 15: Jones, David Earle, 2000, ‘An Instinct for Dragons‘, p.139 (Routledge). Also see Web page Thor and the Midgard Serpent.
16. 16: Henn, T. R, 2005, ‘The Living Image: Shakespearian Essays‘, p.60 (Routledge); Ziolkowski, Jan M, 2006, ‘Fairy Tales from Before Fairy Tales: The Medieval Latin Past of Wonderful Lies‘, p.82 (University of Michigan Press); Barclay, William, 2001, ‘The Gospel of Mark‘, p.300-301 (Westminster John Knox Press); Wright, John Robert, Dutton Marsha L. & Gray, Patrick Terrell, 2006, ‘One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism‘, p.92-93 (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers); Mulryan, John, 1982, ‘Milton and the Middle Ages‘, p.128 (Bucknell University Press); & Schmitt, Carl, 1996, ‘The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes: Meaning and Failure of a Political Symbol‘, p.7-8 (Greenwood Press)

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