The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Complete A–Z for the Entire Magical World. Judika Illes

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The brazen serpent was preserved and named (Nehushtan, a name with linguistic roots similar to words for “magic”) and eventually moved into the Jerusalem Temple, where it remained for 500 years as an official cult object before it was pulverized in a fit of religious reformation.

      That snakes would be associated with the biblical Creator shouldn’t be surprising; snakes play the role of Creators themselves in sacred stories from around the world.

      

      

In China, the goddess Nu Kua, half-snake, half-woman molds humans from clay and puts the universe into order.

      

The Pelasgians were early inhabitants of Greece. According to their creation myth, in the beginning Eurynome, the All-Goddess, rose from Chaos. Dividing the sky from the waters, she began to dance on the waves. Out of the wind, Eurynome created a huge serpent and named him Ophion. They danced together, then Ophion coiled about her and she conceived. Eurynome transformed into a dove and brooded over the waters. She laid the universal egg and bade Ophion coil around it until it was time to hatch. Out of that egg emerged all of Creation, Earth’s planets and all living creatures, all children of a goddess and a primordial snake.

      

Wunekau, solar deity from New Guinea, is the Creator of the universe. Still actively involved with creation, Wunekau directs winds to make women conceive. Among manifestations of his divine presence is a giant snake.

      Snakes are guardians of Earth’s hidden treasures and secret knowledge. Snakes protect all that is most valuable and control its distribution—wisdom, material wealth and treasure, health, and children.

      Snakes are associated with the water element throughout much of the world. They are perceived as rain bringers and famously appear to people all over Earth in the form of the rainbow. There are some 50 species of sea snakes, almost all of which are venomous. Sea snakes aren’t restricted to the ocean. Some live in rivers, others in swamps or lakes.

       According to Carl Jung, snakes represent the underworld, primordial matter, the dark, the unknown, the primal, the Earthy, the watery, the elemental.

      Snakes have a long association with worship of the Great Mother, especially in Mediterranean region. The Egyptian hieroglyph for what would be understood today as “goddess” is expressed by the image of a cobra. Unke, the German snake guardian, is depicted as either a crowned half-fairy/half-snake or as an entire snake wearing a crown and carrying keys. She presides over a family of snake spirits, the Unken (plural), who watch over babies in their cradle. It was considered unlucky to kill or injure a snake as this might result in loss of prosperity or the death of a child.

      Once holy, snake spirits would eventually become demonized just like real snakes: the Libyan snake goddess Lamia was transformed into a strix, a witch-like fiend thirsting for children’s blood in classical Greek mythology. Semitic snake spirit Lilith later emerges as a baby-killing vampire spirit, the Queen of Demons.

      These are just a few deities associated with snakes. There are many more:

      

      

Asklepios and his daughter Hygeia (Greek) Athena (Libyan, Greek)

      

Damballah and Ayida Wedo (Damballah, the white snake, is the most ancient member of the Vodou pantheon; his wife Ayida Wedo is the rainbow serpent)

      

Demeter (Greek)

      

Ezili Freda Dahomey (Vodou)

      

Fauna (Roman)

      

Hecate (Anatolian)

      

Hera (Greek)

      

Hermes (Greek)

      

Isis (Egyptian)

      

Ix Tub Tun (Mayan snake goddess; spits rain and precious stones)

      

Juno (Roman)

      

Kadesh (Semitic spirit of sexuality, beloved in ancient Egypt)

      

Kebechet (Egyptian: Anubis’ daughter manifest in snake form; she is the purifying libation of water that revitalizes the dead)

      

Lilith (Semitic)

      

Mami Waters (West and Central African)

      

Medusa (Libyan, Greek )

      

The Nagas (Indian)

      

Ogun (West African)

      

Persephone (Greek )

      

Quetzalcoatl (Aztec “plumed serpent”)

      

Rosmerta (Gaul)

      

Serapis (Hellenic Egypt)

      

Simbi (Congolese guardian of fountains, marshes, and fresh water)

      

Susanowo (Japanese)

      

Wadjet (Egyptian)

      Snakes are emblems of death. Etruscan Hades grasps a snake while his wife, Persephone, has serpents entwined in her hair—as does that other death deity, Hecate. Shiva and Kali, India’s deities of sex, birth, magic, and death are also both ornamented with snakes.

      Snakes are emblems of immortality too. Snakes’ characteristic shedding of skin

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