[1] A unifying characteristic of most Indo-European descendant mythologies is a story about a battle between a god of thunder, the great hero and a huge serpentine creature.
[2] In Indo-Iranian traditions name of a snake stems from the same root, which is reconstructible in Proto-Indo-Iranian as *Háǰʰiš, and is a cognate to Old High German unc, Old East Slavic ǫžь and probably, as previously mentioned, Hittite Illuy-anka.
In those texts, they are slain by various heroes such as Garshasp, Rostam or Esfandiyar[3] In Hindu mythology, the Vedic god Indra slays the multi-headed serpent Vṛtrá, which has been causing a drought by trapping the waters in his mountain lair.
As for other related Indo-European myths, slain serpents usually bear names etymologically unrelated to *h₂n̥gʷʰis, but they frequently have a same meaning "snake, serpent": In most Slavic tales, the word that descends from Proto-Slavic *zmьjь ("snake, dragon") is frequently used, with examples being Russian and Ukrainian Zmey Gorynych (Russian: Змей Горыныч; Ukrainian: Змій Горинич), many-headed dragon who was killed by Dobrynya Nikitich, zmȁj in Serbian and zmej in Macedonian fairytales.
kulshedra), who were slain by divine heroes (drangue), derives from Latin chersydrus, which roughly translates to an "amphibious snake".