In the Scandinavian myth, Odin the son of Bur, broke for a season the strength of the great serpent Jörmungard, who, however, eventually swallowed the hero. Thus was Odin the sun; and his companions, the other Asir, were more or less sun attributes. In the case of Egypt the god is Horus (the sun-light), the youthful son of Osiris and Isis, who drives back Typhon to the deserts; for that country the rising of the Nile is the happy crisis. Horus is sometimes called Nilus. Whether the above derivation of the word Typhon be correct or not, which may be doubtful,[3] that of Horus from the root _Hur_ light, connected with the Sanscrit _Ush_ to burn (whence also Aurora, etc.,) is certain. When the great myth became translated to different climates, the evil principle took on different forms of dread. Water, the rainy season in some countries, the darkness and cold of winter in others, were the Dragon which the Hero-god, the Sun, had to overcome--out of which conflict arose myths innumerable, yet one and the same in essence. Apollo slew the Python, the sunbeams drying up the waters being his arrows; Perseus slew the Dragon, by turning him to stone, which perhaps means that the spring sun dried up the mud of the particular locality where the fable rose. Later, Sigurd slew the Dragon Fafnir. When the Christians found themselves by expediency committed to adopt the form, and to a certain degree the spirit, of heathen beliefs, the Sun _versus_ Darkness, or the Spring _versus_ Winter myth was a difficulty in very many places. At first the idea was kept up of a material victory over the adverse forces of nature, and we find honourable mention of various bishops and saints, who--by means of which there is little detail, but which may be supposed to be that great monastic beneficence, intelligent drainage--conquered the dragons of flood and fen. It is somewhat odd that the Psalmist attributes to the Deity the victory of breaking the heads of the "dragons in the waters." Thus St. Romain of Rouen slew there the Dragon Gargouille, which is but the name of a draining-gutter after all, and hence the grotesque waterspouts of our churches are mostly dragons.