Serpents and their ilk

Seems that serpents, snakes if you like, inhabit a special place in our darker thoughts. At a guess it is their sinuous, shiny, somewhat phallic appearance coupled with lightning-fast forked tongues and deadly venom that gets us interested. There's plenty to think about when a snake is close by.

Snakes are of the earth, as we are, although we place ourselves above nature now (to our peril, perhaps). Anyway, whatever the reason, they have been co-opted as symbols, as protectors and as representatives of evil, or of power. For perhaps 4,500 years they have wrapped themselves around staffs (or the axis mundi) as in a caduceus, or around trees as in the Elamite World Tree or the Biblical Genesis story. They became Medusa's hair, capable of turning men to stone, or the god Zeus himself as his pre-Grecian serpent form Meilichios. And so it goes. The theme is strong, ranging from the companion or protector, to the dark Serpent Lord. As we morphed into a patriarchical religious view of the world our now male gods saw a need to slay these sneaky reptiles and prove themselves masters of the earth. Thus we see Zeus conquer Typhon and Yahweh defeat the Leviathan.