Caduceus is a continuation of the older Indo-European dragon-slayer motif. Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (1913) pointed out that the serpent as an attribute of both Hermes and Asclepius is a variant of the "pre-historic semi-chthonic serpent hero known at Delphi as Python", who in classical mythology is slain by Apollo. One Greek myth of origin of the caduceus is part of the story of Tiresias, who found two snakes copulating and killed the female with his staff. Tiresias was immediately turned into a woman, and so remained until he was able to repeat the act with the male snake seven years later.
Serpent Lord serpent"), while plainly referring to the standard, is sometimes understood by some fans to also refer to the leader of the Haradrim himself. Tolkien only calls the leader a "chieftain". Thus the title is not considered canonical by many fans. This alternative interpretation may be justified because Théoden may not have been proud of having killed the banner-bearer so much as having killed the enemy leader himself. Another interpretation has Théoden speaking figuratively; by "felling the black serpent", he not only cut down the black serpent standard but defeated the horsemen of Harad, at least temporarily. In Games Workshop's game,