Snakes in Mythology

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Snakes were central to many mythologies because of their perceived quality of being both familiar and exotic. The behaviour of snakes and their facial features seemed to imply that they were intelligent, that they lived by reason and not instinct, and yet their thought-processes were as alien to humans as their ways of movement. In some cultures snakes were fertility symbols, for example the Hopi people of North America performed an annual snake dance to celebrate the union of Snake Youth and Snake Girl an Underworld spirit and to renew fertility of Nature. During the dance, live snakes were handled and at the end of the dance the snakes were released into the fields to guarantee good crops. In other cultures snakes symbolised the umbilical cord, joining all humans to Mother Earth. The Great Goddess often had snakes as her familiars - sometimes twining around her sacred staff, as in ancient Crete - and they were worshipped as guardians of her mysteries of birth and regeneration.