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Mythological dragons, serpents, and snakes. Illuyanka – serpentine dragon from Hittite mythology and religion; Nāga – half-human half-snake being, found in Hindu mythology and Buddhist mythology. Verechelen – mythical creature between a dragon and a snake, often depicted with multiple heads, originating from Volga Bulgaria.
The anthropologist Lynne Isbell has argued that, as primates, the serpent as a symbol of death is built into our unconscious minds because of our evolutionary history.. Isbell argues that for millions of years snakes were the only significant predators of primates, and that this explains why fear of snakes is one of the most common phobias worldwide and why the symbol of the serpent is so ...
The term "maenads" also refers to women in mythology who resisted the worship of Dionysus and were driven mad by him, forced against their will to participate in often horrific rites. The doubting women of Thebes , the prototypical maenads or "mad women", left their homes to live in the wilds of the nearby mountain Cithaeron .
Snakes were regularly regarded as guardians of the Underworld or messengers between the Upper and Lower worlds, because they lived in cracks and holes in the ground. The Gorgons of Greek myth were snake-women (a common hybrid) whose gaze would turn flesh into stone, the most famous of them being Medusa. [18]
Echidna, the wife of Typhon in Greek mythology, was half woman, half snake. Fu Xi: serpentine founding figure from Chinese mythology. Glycon: a Roman snake god who had the head of a man. The Gorgons: Sisters in Greek mythology who had serpents for hair. The Lamiai: female phantoms from Greek mythology depicted as half woman, half-serpent.
Snake's name, and the snakes she uses, invoke images drawn from religion and mythology. For instance, modern-day physicians in the United States use a caduceus, or staff with intertwining snakes, as an emblem: in Greek mythology, the caduceus is the symbol of Hermes, and signifies that its carrier is a bearer of divine knowledge.
The myth of Medusa is central to the Tales from the Cryptkeeper episode segment, Myth Conceptions. A greedy archaeologist is in Greece, searching for Medusa's temple . He tells a local village girl named Zola that contrary to popular belief, Perseus was just the name a thief used to get attention and had failed to slay Medusa; and that he is ...
The Greek poet Hesiod might have mentioned the Snake-Legged Goddess in the Theogony, where he assimilated her to the monstrous figure of Echidna from Greek mythology.In Hesiod's narrative, "Echidna" was a serpent-nymph living in a cave far from any inhabited lands, and the god Targī̆tavah, assimilated to Heracles, killed two of her children, namely the hydra of Lerna and the lion of Nemea.