In the Saxon Beowulf we have Grendel, a terrible monster, who comes to the palace-hall at midnight, and drags out the sleepers and sucks their blood. Beowulf assails him. A ghastly struggle follows in the darkness. Grendel is killed. But his fearful mother, the devil's clam, comes to avenge his death; she attacks Beowulf, and is slain.[1] There comes a third dragon, which Beowulf kills, but is stifled with the breath of the monster and dies, rejoicing, however, that the dragon has brought with him a great treasure of gold, which will make his people rich.[2] [1. Poor, "Sanskrit and Kindred Literatures," p. 315. 2. Ibid.] {p. 234} Here, again, are the three comets, the wolf, the snake, and the dog of Ragnarok; the three arrows of the American legends; the three monsters of Hesiod. When we turn to Egypt we find that their whole religion was constructed upon legends relating to the ages of fire and ice, and the victory of the sun-god over the evil-one. We find everywhere a recollection of the days of cloud, "when darkness dwelt upon the face of the deep." Osiris, their great god, represented the sun in his darkened or nocturnal or ruined condition, before the coming of day. M. Mariette-Bey says: "Originally, Osiris is the nocturnal sun; he is _the primordial night of chaos_; he is consequently anterior to Ra, the Sun of Day."[1] Mr. Miller says: "As nocturnal sun, Osiris was also regarded as a type of the sun _before its first rising_, or of the primordial night of chaos, and as such, according to M. Mariette, his first rising--his original birth to the light under the form of Ra--symbolized the birth of humanity itself in the person of the first man."[2] M. F. Chabas says: "These forms represented the same god at different hours of the day. . . . the nocturnal sun and the daily sun, which, succeeding to the first, dissipated the darkness on the morning of each day, and renewed the triumph of Horus over Set; that is to say, _the cosmical victory which determined the first rising of the sun_--the organization of the universe at the commencement of time. Ra is the god who, after _having marked the commencement of time_, continues each day to govern his work. . . . He succeeds [1. "Musée de Boulaq," etc., pp. 20, 21, 100, 101. 2. Rev. O. D. Miller, "Solar Symbolism," "American Antiquarian," April, 1881, p. 219.] {p. 235} to a primordial form, Osiris, the nocturnal sun, or better, _the sun before its first rising_."[1] "_The suffering and death of Osiris_," says Sir G. Wilkinson, "_were the great mystery of the Egyptian religion_, and some traces of it are perceptible among other people of antiquity. His being the divine goodness, and the abstract idea of good; his _manifestation upon earth_, his _death_ and _resurrection_, and his office as judge of the dead in a future state, look like the early revelation of a future manifestation of the Deity, converted into a mythological fable."[2]