primordial ocean and did not release all created beings until Indra split the serpent's stomach with a thunderbolt. In another myth, the protector Vishnu slept on the coils of the world-serpent Shesha (or "Ananta the endless";). Shesha in turn was supported on Kurma and when Kurma moved, Shesha stirred and yawned and the gaping of its jaws caused earthquakes. In Chinese mythology, the woman-headed snake Nüwa made the first humans. She made humans one at a time with clay. To conserve her energy, she dipped a rope in clay and flicked it so blobs of clay landed everywhere; each blob of clay became an individual human. The first humans of hers became high-class, but second ones became low-class. Greek cosmological myths tell of how Ophion the snake incubated the primordial egg from which all created things were born. The classical symbol of the Ouroboros depicts a snake in the act of eating its own tail. This symbol has many interpretations, one of which is the snake representing cyclical nature of life and death, life feeding on itself in the act of creation. The underworld Snakes were regularly regarded as guardians of the Underworld or messengers between the Upper and Lower worlds, because they lived in cracks and holes in the ground. The Gorgons of Greek myth were snake-women (a common hybrid) whose gaze would turn flesh into stone, the most famous of them being Medusa. Nagas, "the demon cobra" and naginis were human-headed snakes whose kings and queens who lived in jewel-encrusted underground or underwater paradises and who were perpetually at war with Garuda the Sun-bird. In Egyptian myth, every morning the serpent Aapep (symbolising chaos) attacked the Sunship (symbolizing order). Aapep would try to engulf the ship and the sky was drenched red at dawn and dusk with its blood as the Sun defeated it. In Nordic myth, evil was symbolized by the serpent (actually a dragon) Nidhogg (the 'Dread Biter') who coiled around one of the three roots of Yggdrasil the Tree of Life, and tried to choke or gnaw the life from it. "Here there is an evil dragon named Nidhogg that gnaws constantly at the root, striving to destroy Yggdrasil" In ancient Slavic paganism a deity by the name of Veles presided over the underworld. He is almost always portrayed as a serpent or dragon depending on the particular myth. The underworld was part of a