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.
The Great Snake Serpent". "Poloz" () is the word for the snakes from the Colubridae family. The character of Poloz the Great Snake is based the Ural legends, miner's omens, and on the superstitions of the Khanty, the Mansi people, and the Bashkirs. The legends about Poloz, a giant serpent 6–10 meters long, still exist at the Urals. In the Bashkir folklore there is the character the Master of Gold, which can appear as various animals, including the snake. At the Urals he is also called The Serpent or The Snake King (Змеиный царь, "Zmeinyj tsar"). It is believed that the grass turns