As Hyde came to this, I suddenly understood the central proposition of the book he and Dr. Findlay were going to write at that time.

I asked, "Is the book you co-authored about the worship of the serpent?" ”

Hyde nodded with no surprise on his face, and he pointed to the scroll in my hand, and behind me, "All the connections are here." ”

From ancient times to the present, there have always been legends about giant snakes around the world, and ancient giant snakes are often related to creation myths.

Sometimes it appears as the creator and savior; Sometimes, it is the evil god who destroys the world.

The serpent has a curly body, can run without feet, and can soar without wings. Coming and going, flickering without a trace, haunting in the bushes, swimming in the rivers, the eyes are mysterious, emitting a fierce light, the tongue is forked, the expansion is terrible, the whole body has brilliant patterns, it is dead but not stiff in winter, and it is born again in spring......

All these have led people to associate snakes with gods or supernatural phenomena, and to worship and fear snakes, and thus form a large number of creation myths about the idea of snakes.

One of the most famous is the legend of the "Earthly Serpent", and there are many versions of the legend of the Earthly Serpent.

In Norse mythology, the earthly serpent is known as Jörmangund, the second son of Loki, the god of destruction and calamity, and Angleberda, the giantess.

This python surrounds the entire Nordic world, with its mouth and tail, head and tail together, symbolizing eternity. In the imagination of the ancient Norse, the mortal world inhabited by mortals was located in the center of the entire universe, a huge castle, and the earthly python coiled around this castle, which would stir up terrible waves when the calamity of the gods came.

Another name for the earthly serpent is Voloporos, which is derived from ancient Egyptian and Greek mythology, and is a mythical python biting its own tail, symbolizing reincarnation and rebirth, that is, the beginning and the end, never ending.

Sure enough, it was something that involved his own expertise, and Hyde gushed about it as soon as he spoke, and became more and more energetic: "When the serpent moves to winter, it hibernates, and in the spring it sheds its skin and is reborn, and ancient people can easily associate eternal life and rebirth." Therefore, in many cultures around the world, there is this kind of 'snake totem' connected head to tail, and this image of a giant snake connected from head to tail contains the imagination of ancient human beings for 'reincarnation' and 'eternity over and over again'. In terms of semiotic concepts, Volopolos' totem is almost universal. ”

Lao Dao yawned when he heard it, Hyde is a researcher, and he was also a visiting professor at the university, talking about this knowledge is naturally a set of sets, but in Lao Dao's ears, this is undoubtedly equivalent to Sun Monkey listening to Tang Seng chanting, which is a super torture - and Hyde also talks stinky and long!

At this time, Lao Dao finally found an opportunity to interject, he snorted heavily, and said, "You foreigner knows nonsense!" The tattoo on Aji's back, as well as the snake on the woman's body in this ancient painting, are all cross-legged with her mouth open, not at all a totemic image of a pineapple biting her tail or something, I must say that the two have in common - they are all snakes. ”

Lao Dao said it unceremoniously, but Hyde was not angry, and said with a smile: "From the perspective of origin, the microscopic physical movement and the cosmic celestial movement are generated at the same time, and the microscopic and cosmic poles are connected. ”

"Huh?!" The old knife didn't understand.

I explained to Lao Dao that this is an analogy, which roughly means that everything has similarities and similarities.

As soon as I said this, the old knife immediately came back to his senses, and the old boy stretched out his finger and laughed at Hyde: "You foreigner is also a guy who can't afford to lose!" Okay, I'll admit that it was my tone that was bad before, but there are also simple working people who are listening to your lecture, and you have to consider the feelings of the people, Dr. Bearded? ”

Hyde stroked his beard and looked like "do you like to listen or not".

Shen Tangzhi said: "Ace usually has a good temper, but his primary identity is a scholar and researcher, and if someone questions him in his professional field, of course he will react very seriously." ”

I glanced at Shen Tangzhi, and said in my heart No wonder as soon as you said specific things before, you directly took a back seat, and all of them let this British bearded man talk about it, it turns out that there is still this reason.

Hyde goes on to say that the excavation of the bone statue was in Scotland's Ager Forest Park.

The area of Ager Forest Park is the oldest forest in the UK, surrounded by the sea on one side, full of rugged peaks and hidden gorges, and the rivers are fast and inaccessible.

"In Scottish mythology, the name of the god of the forest is Ager, and it is a giant serpent that spreads from the sea to the earth, and the body of the huge snake surrounds the entire island of Great Britain - through that statue, we finally know the image of Ager, whose snake mouth is clenched by the snake's tail, which is in line with the totem of the 'earthly serpent'."

Dr. Findlay was convinced that the statue he owned was an idol of Ager, carved by the ancient people.

"The scroll in your hand is the second artifact Dr. Findlay showed me. And what I'm going to talk about next is going to be very weird. ”

Hyde's voice suddenly deepened, and he glanced at Shen Tangzhi, who nodded at him.

Hyde took a deep breath, and he stretched out a finger and pointed to the scroll in my hand: "In that ancient painting, the tattoo on the girl's back was not like this at first. I vividly remember that the girl's back was a very clear earthly giant snake totem - a black snake with a tail biting and curled up in a circle! ”

"What?!"

I could hardly believe my ears, and I subconsciously unfolded the scroll in my hand and looked at the girl in the painting again—on her curvaceous back, there was still a snake with its head coiled and its head held high, not the tail swallowing image of an earthly serpent.

The girl's tattoo on the scroll has changed!

Could it be that the tattoos on my body really have any connection with the "earthly serpent" in Hyde's mouth?

Hyde's eyes suddenly filled with sadness: "The picture Julia saw on my computer was not the original version of the scroll, it was from an email from Dr. Findlay to me, five years later, the night before he disappeared. ”

The book that Hyde and Dr. Findlay intended to co-author, but it was never completed, and their ideas were violently attacked by classical academic scholars, because Findlay and Hyde came up with a shocking idea: the Scottish ancestors believed in the serpent Ager, and that this "god" did not exist only in the imagination of the ancestors, but had substance!

That is the most ferocious and brutal giant snake in ancient times - the Titan Mont Python!