adramant it is still dangerous to touch the sensitive mimosa, because
the spirit that resides in the plant will avenge the injury". When men
interfere with the incense trees it is reported: "the demons of the
place flew away with doleful cries in the shape of white serpents, and
the intruders died soon afterwards".]

[275: _Vide supra_, p. 38.]

[276: In Western mythology the dragon guarding the fruit-bearing tree of
life is also identified with the Mother of Mankind (Campbell, "Celtic
Dragon Myth," pp. xli and 18). Thus the tree and its defender are both
surrogates of the Great Mother. When Eve ate the apple from the tree of
Paradise she was committing an act of cannibalism, for the plant was
only another form of herself. Her "sin" consisted in aspiring to attain
the immortality which was the exclusive privilege of the gods. This
incident is analogous to that found in the Indian tales where mortals
steal the _amrita_. By Eve's sin "death came into the world" for the
paradoxical reason that she had eaten the food of the gods which gives
immortality. The punishment meted out to her by the Almighty seems to
have been to inhibit the life-giving and birth-facilitating action of
the fruit of immortality, so that she and all her progeny were doomed to
be mortal and to suffer the pangs of child-bearing.

There was a widespread belief among the ancients that ceremonies in
connexion with the gods must (to be efficacious) be done in the reverse
of the usual human way (Hopkins, "Religions of India," p. 201). So also
an act which gives immortality to the gods, brings death to man.

The full realization of the fact that man was mortal imposed upon the
early theologians the necessity of explaining the immortality of the
gods. The elixir of life was the food of the gods that conferred eternal
life upon them. By one of those paradoxes so dear to the maker of myths
this same elixir brought death to man.]

[277: Bohn's Edition, 1855, Vol. II, p. 433.]

[278: A Cretan scene depicts a man attacking a dog-headed sea-monster
(Mackenzie, _op. cit._, "Myths of Crete," p. 139).]

[279: A number of versions of this widespread fable have been collected
by Dr. Rendel Harris (_op. cit._) and Sir James Frazer (_op. cit._). I
quote here from the former (p. 118).]

[280: Josephus, "Bell. Jud.," VII, 6, 3, quoted by Rendel Harris, _op.
cit._, p. 118.]

[281: The dog-star became associated with Hathor for reasons which are
explained on p. 209.