Etymology also confirms this conception: There is an Indo-Germanic root _vélu-_, _vel-_, with the meaning of “encircling, surrounding, turning.” From this is derived Sanskrit _val_, _valati_ = to cover, to surround, to encircle, to encoil (symbol of the snake); _vallî_ = creeping plant; _ulûta_ = boa-constrictor = Latin _volûtus_, Lithuanian _velù_, _velti_ = _wickeln_ (to roll up); Church Slavonian _vlina_ = Old High German, _wella_ = _Welle_ (wave or billow). To the root _vélu_ also belongs the root _vlvo_, with the meaning “cover, corium, womb.” (The serpent on account of its casting its skin is an excellent symbol of rebirth.) Sanskrit _ulva_, _ulba_ has the same meaning; Latin _volva_, _volvula_, _vulva_. To _vélu_ also belongs the root _ulvorâ_, with the meaning of “fruitful field, covering or husk of plants, sheath.” Sanskrit _urvárâ_ = sown field. Zend _urvara_ = plant. (See the personification of the ploughed furrow.) The same root _vel_ has also the meaning of “wallen” (to undulate). Sanskrit _ulmuka_ = conflagration. Ϝαλέα, Ϝέλα, Gothic _vulan_ = _wallen_ (to undulate). Old High German and Middle High German _walm_ = heat, glow.[494] It is typical that in the state of “involution” the hair of the sun-hero always falls out from the heat. Further the root _vel_ is found with the meaning “to sound,[495] and to will, to wish” (libido!). The motive of encoiling is mother symbolism.[496] This is verified by the fact that the trees, for example, bring forth again (like the whale in the legend of Jonah). They do that very generally, thus in the Greek legend the Μελίαι νύμφαι[497] of the ash trees are the mothers of the race of men of the Iron Age. In northern mythology, Askr, the ash tree, is the primitive father. His wife, Embla, is the “Emsige,” the active one, and not, as was earlier believed, the aspen. _Askr_ probably means, in the first place, the phallic spear of the ash tree. (Compare the Sabine custom of parting the bride’s hair with the lance.) The Bundehesh symbolizes the first people, Meschia and Meschiane, as the tree Reivas, one part of which places a branch in a hole of the other part. The material which, according to the northern myth, was animated by the god when he created men[498] is designated as _trê_ = wood, tree.[499] I recall also ὕλη = wood, which in Latin is called _materia_. In the wood of the “world-ash,” Ygdrasil, a human pair hid themselves at the end of the world, from whom sprang the race of the renewed world.[500] The Noah motive is easily recognized in this conception (the night journey on the sea); at the same time, in the symbol of Ygdrasil, a mother idea is again apparent. At the moment of the destruction of the world the “world-ash” becomes the guardian mother, the tree of death and life, one “ἐγκόλπιον.”[501][502] This function of rebirth of the “world-ash” also helps to elucidate the representation met with in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which is called “the gate of knowledge of the soul of the