The Sun and the Serpent

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Each morning the sun rose again and moved across the sky and, watching it, the people would know they had played a part in the gods' victory over the forces of darkness and chaos. The first act of the priests in the temples across Egypt was the ritual of Lighting the Fire which re-enacted the first sunrise. This was performed just before dawn in defiance of Apophis' desire to snuff out the light of creation and return all to darkness.

In folk and fairy tale traditions all over the world, the serpent and the snake appear as characters in several fairy tales, either a main character in animal fables and magic tales ( Märchen), or as the donor who grants the protagonist a special ability or impart him with some secret knowledge. The Egyptian symbol of a snake in a circular shape, eating its own tail, represented renewal and resurrection. It was called the Ouroboros and was depicted on a shrine on Tutankhamen’s tomb. In alchemy, the Ouroboros symbol appears again. The alchemical cross also features a crucified snake and represents the mythical potion, the Elixir of Life. In India Savior, Satan, and Serpent: The Duality of a Symbol in the Scriptures". Mimobile.byu.edu. Archived from the original on January 29, 2013 . Retrieved December 7, 2012. In Central America, the ancient Mayan book, Chilam Balam, claims that the first people to inhabit the Yucatan were the Chanes or People of the Serpent. Sources cite the Chanes as being led across the sea by the serpent god Itzamna, who ruled by his esoteric knowledge rather than strength. Feathered serpents were also depicted in much of their art, possibly implying the creatures had the ability to fly. After the Maya, the Aztecs too worshiped a serpent god. Quetzalcoatl was a plumed serpent god who brought the knowledge of science and mathematics to his people. In China

Jail didn't stop his sex life

Eremina, Valeriia. 2010. “An International Tale-Type: ‘The City of Babylon’”. FOLKLORICA - Journal of the Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Folklore Association 15 (July): 99-128. doi: 10.17161/folklorica.v15i0.4027. 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 (a Sky spirit) and Snake Girl (an Underworld spirit) and to renew the 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. "The snake dance is a prayer to the spirits of the clouds, the thunder and the lightning, that the rain may fall on the growing crops." [5] To the Hopi, snakes symbolized 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 worshiped as guardians of her mysteries of birth and regeneration. [6] Evolutionary origins [ edit ] Main article: Snake worship The "libation vase of Gudea" with the dragon Mushussu, dedicated to Ningishzida (twentieth centuryBCE short chronology). The caduceus is interpreted as depicting the god himself. [21]

Frazer, James G. "The Language of Animals". In: Archaeological Review. Vol. I. No. 3. May, 1888. D. Nutt. 1888. pp. 166 and 175-177. Spooner, Henry G. (January 1, 1984). The American Journal of Urology and Sexology. p.72 . Retrieved December 7, 2012. The Egyptians assembled in the temples to make images of the serpent in wax. They spat upon the images, burned them and mutilated them. Cloudy days or storms were signs that Apophis was gaining ground, and solar eclipses were particular times of terror for the Egyptians, as they were interpreted as a sign of Ra's demise. The sun god emerged victorious each time, however, and the people continued their prayers and anthems. (198) Furthermore, the psychoanalyst Joseph Lewis Henderson and the ethnologist Maude Oakes have argued that the serpent is a symbol of initiation and rebirth precisely because it is a symbol of death. [9]

HELIUS (Helios) - Greek Titan God of the Sun (Roman Sol)". www.theoi.com . Retrieved 15 March 2018.

Malkowski, Edward F. (October 3, 2007). The Spiritual Technology of Ancient Egypt. Inner Traditions/Bear. p.223. ISBN 978-1-59477-776-9 . Retrieved December 7, 2012. At Angkor in Cambodia, numerous stone sculptures present hooded multi-headed nāgas as guardians of temples or other premises. A favorite motif of Angkorean sculptors from approximately the 12th centuryCE onward was that of the Buddha, sitting in the position of meditation, his weight supported by the coils of a multi-headed nāga that also uses its flared hood to shield him from above. This motif recalls the story of the Buddha and the serpent king Mucalinda: as the Buddha sat beneath a tree engrossed in meditation, Mucalinda came up from the roots of the tree to shield the Buddha from a tempest that was just beginning to arise. Snake cults were well established in Canaanite religion in the Bronze Age, for archaeologists have uncovered serpent cult objects in Bronze Age strata at several pre-Israelite cities in Canaan: two at Megiddo, [22] one at Gezer, [23] one in the sanctum sanctorum of the Area H temple at Hazor, [24] and two at Shechem. [25]Felton, Debbie. "Apuleius' Cupid Considered as a Lamia (Metamorphoses 5.17-18)." Illinois Classical Studies, no. 38 (2013): 230 (footnote nr. 4). doi: 10.5406/illiclasstud.38.0229. In the Poetic Edda, Odin tells of eight serpents gnawing on the roots of Yggdrasil: Nidhöggr, Gravvitnir, Moin, Goin, Grábakr, Grafvölluðr, Svafnir and Ofnir. Python was the earth-dragon of Delphi. She always was represented in the vase-paintings and by sculptors as a serpent. Python was the chthonic enemy of Apollo, who slew her and remade her former home his own oracle, the most famous in Classical Greece.

Similarly Níðhöggr (Nidhogg Nagar), the dragon of Norse mythology, eats from the roots of the Yggdrasil, the World Tree. When the reformer King Hezekiah came to the throne of Judah in the late 8th centuryBCE, "He removed the high places, broke the sacred pillars, smashed the idols, and broke into pieces the copper snake that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan. ( 2 Kings 18:4)

A Contribution to the History of Serpent-Worship

Aarne, Antti. Verzeichnis der Märchentypen. Folklore Fellows Classification 3. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Tiedeakatemian Toimituksia, 1910. p. 8. [1] Behr-Glinka, A.I. " Folk-Tale Type ATU411 in Eurasian Folk Tradition: Some Remarks to the “Typological Index of Folk-Tale Types” of H.-J. Uther" [Siuzhetnyi tip ATU411 v skazochnoi traditsiiEvrazii: nekoto rye zamechaniia k “Tipologicheskomu ukazateliu skazochnykh siuzhetov” H.-J. Utera]. Etnograficheskoe Obozrenie, 2018, no. 4, pp. 171–184. ISSN 0869-5415 doi: 10.31857/S086954150000414-5