> [!info] For snakes in real life, see: [[Snakes]]. These are snakes in mythology, folk tales, etc. --- # Serpents [[2025-0310. 'The snake is a common symbol in the religious beliefs, ceremonies and legends in many cultures.'|'The snake is a common symbol in the religious beliefs, ceremonies and legends in many cultures.']][^1] [[2025-0310. 'The snake is a common symbol in the religious beliefs, ceremonies and legends in many cultures.'|'Man’s ideas of the snake have always been ambivalent; it is a creature crawling on the earth that also suggests rebirth in its ability to shed its skin and be revitalized every spring.']][^1] --- ## The Tail-Eating Snake [[“The tail-eating snake stood for the world with the ancient Egyptians ...”|'The tail-eating snake stood for the world with the ancient Egyptians...']][^1] [[“The tail-eating snake stood for the world with the ancient Egyptians ...”|'The tail-eating snake ... was accepted by the Alexandrian alchemists...']][^1] [[“The tail-eating snake stood for the world with the ancient Egyptians ...”|'The tail-eating snake ... reappeared in the Scandinavian Prose Edda as Midgardsorm, the snake lying in the middle of the ocean which surrounds the world.']][^1] [[“The tail-eating snake stood for the world with the ancient Egyptians ...”|'The use of the emblem should be related to the use of the circle form to symbolize eternity and to the traditional way of representing Time, the divine principle of eternal and inexhaustible creativeness, as a divine figure with a serpent round him.']][^1] --- ## Pan Ku [[2025-0310. 'Pan Ku was the most ancient ancestor and the creator of the world ... It is said that he had a dragon’s head and a serpent’s body.'|'Pan Ku was the most ancient ancestor and the creator of the world ... It is said that he had a dragon’s head and a serpent’s body.']][^2] [^1]: Denise Chao, ‘[[Chao. ‘The Snake in Chinese Belief’, 1979.|The Snake in Chinese Belief]]’, *Folklore* 90, no. 2 (January 1979), p.193. [^2]: Denise Chao, ‘[[Chao. ‘The Snake in Chinese Belief’, 1979.|The Snake in Chinese Belief]]’, *Folklore* 90, no. 2 (January 1979), p.194.