Snakes Alive!

[vovat]

One kind of animal that's constantly showing up in mythology is the snake. And most of the time, these snakes aren't very nice. Here are just a few examples:

• The serpent who tricked Adam and Eve into eating forbidden fruit, which led to their getting some brains, but also being kicked out of the Garden of Eden.
  
• The snake who stole the plant that was Gilgamesh's one shot at immortality.
  
• The Midgard Serpent Jörmungandr, a poisonous snake who wraps around the whole world and bites his own tail. The giants once tricked Thor into believing that Jörmungandr was a cat, which makes me wonder what he actually looks like. Oh, and his siblings are a wolf and the Queen of the Underworld, which must make for an interesting time at family reunions.
  
• All of the Greek monsters with snake-like features, including the many-headed Hydra slain by Herakles, his serpent-bodied mother Echidna (no idea why that name has since been given to spiny anteaters), and her snake-legged-and-fingered consort Typhon. Then there's Medusa, the hideous woman with snakes for hair. (I wonder if she had to feed them all individually, or if they had a symbiotic relationship with her.) I actually first heard of Medusa because of a pinball machine at the local pizza parlor. I was there with my dad, and he explained who Medusa was.
  

It seems like snakes have gotten a bad rap throughout the world. I've heard that fear of snakes is supposed to be an inborn trait for humans, but I don't know that I believe it. I can't recall ever being particularly scared of snakes in general. Maybe it's different when they sneak up on you in the middle of the desert or jungle, though. Not all snakes in mythology are bad, however. The part-human nagas of India can apparently go either way, and some other cultures have given us positive portrayals of snakes in their religion and folklore. They're sometimes regarded as fertility symbols, probably because of their resemblance to a certain male sexual organ. Some people suggest that this might actually fit into the Adam and Eve story as well, since it's often accepted that they discovered sexuality upon eating the forbidden fruit. According to the Bible, though, they were told to be fruitful and multiply before that incident. (Hey, maybe they ate the fruit because they misinterpreted the command to "be fruitful"! Thank you! I'll be here all week! Please tip your waiter!) They can also represent wisdom, and I have to say that some of the snakes I've already mentioned were regarded as smart; it's just that they used their intelligence for evil purposes. But there are some good snakes in the world of mythology, including:

• Quetzalcoatl, the winged serpent worshipped by the Aztecs.
  
• Mucalinda, the snake king who protected the Buddha during his meditation under the Bodhi Tree.
  
• The Rainbow Serpent, a famous gay nightclub. No, seriously, he or she (the gender varies from one culture to another) was a creature instrumental in several Australian Aboriginal creation myths. It created life, and distributes water throughout the land. I hadn't heard of this animal until today, and the brief amount I've read indicates that it isn't always seen as good, but I think its role in creation makes it fair game for this list.
  

Tomorrow, I'll tell you about some of the snakes that have appeared in my own writings.

Comments

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I was just reading and watching some stuff on Indian mythology and it makes sense that for them their snake-symbols could be both good and bad-- I don't think I ever quite comprehended that concept until this recent onslaught of Indian mythological education....

So, this is possibly a stupid question (as in the answer is "DUH"), but I have to ask because I just finally got it out of the library the other day (it accounts for the "reading" portion of the recent mythology onslaught), have you read Campbell's "Hero with a Thousand Faces"?

[vovat.livejournal.com]

No, I actually never have! I've heard of it many times, and I'm sure I SHOULD, but I haven't ever gotten around to it. Maybe I'll check tomorrow to see if the local library has it.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Definitely up your alley. It's very academic; the first section is kind of hard to get through, but once he gets into the stories proper it's a good read. And it's interesting the whole way through, of course!

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Well, I just checked it out today. I'll let you know what I think of it.

[annamatic.livejournal.com]

I love snakes so much. They are awesome!

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I haven't really had that much contact with snakes, but I've been considering getting one as a pet someday. Then again, there are a lot of different animals I'd like to have as pets someday, and I doubt I'll have the chance to keep all of them.

[colbyucb.livejournal.com]

Snakes! They're so cute! I knew about some of the mythological snakes, but this post further educated me. Looking forward to reading about your own snake-containing writings.

Nagas have interested me a lot too. I thought I had more to say about them, but I guess I'll just say they're a really cool concept, obviously stemming from my innate snake-love.

They say humans are programmed to be afraid of certain movements, like the ways spiders move, and I am definitely afraid of those (and pretty much all bugs.) Luckily I'm not afraid of snakes, but I know too many people that are :( Even ones that aren't poisonous and can't even bite. I think they're more aesthetically pleasing than spiders, though I will admit some spiders are really interesting to the eye, I just can't get over my fear of them. I guess that's how snake-fearers feel though too? Meh.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I can see that snake movements might be inherently frightening to humans, but not so much the snakes themselves. I do kind of get the impression that people who are afraid of snakes don't have it quite as bad as those who are afraid of bugs, but maybe that's just based on the few examples I know of both. I'm usually not that scared of bugs either, unless they're the really nasty-looking kind. I do generally squash them, though, and I'm afraid to touch them afterwards.