Subcategories

Serpents

6 of 150 entries in Mythical Creatures. Click any to see everything it connects to.

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "Serpents." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/subcategories/mythicalcreature/serpents.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). Serpents. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/subcategories/mythicalcreature/serpents

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-serpents,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {Serpents},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/subcategories/mythicalcreature/serpents},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Serpents brings together the Basilisk of medieval European bestiaries, the many headed Hydra of Greek myth, the world encircling Jormungandr of Norse cosmology, and the Naga of Hindu and Buddhist tradition, ranging from a nature spirit to a semi divine guardian. All four are defined by a serpentine body, but the traditions behind them share no common source, and the Naga in particular carries a religious weight the others do not.

Facts

Overview

What Defines This Grouping

Great snakes and snake-beings, collected by body-form as the comparative folklore indexes collect them. The serpent carries opposite values between traditions, so the group is a shape and not a meaning. 2

Peoples and Traditions Covered

European: the basilisk descends from a Latin natural-history report - Pliny's serpent of Cyrenaica - and lives in books and bestiaries rather than in any cult. 3

Peoples and Traditions Covered

Greek: the Hydra of Lerna is a many-headed water-snake killed by Herakles as the second of his labours. 4

Peoples and Traditions Covered

Hindu: nagas are serpent beings of waters, treasure and the underworld who receive cult, and they appear in Buddhist and Jain narrative as well as Hindu. 5

Peoples and Traditions Covered

Norse: Jormungandr, the Midgard serpent, encircles the inhabited world and is Thor's adversary at Ragnarok. 6

Learn More

The Serpents

This group holds mythical serpents, the great snakes and snake-beings that recur across the world's mythologies as figures of chaos, wisdom, fertility, guardianship or cosmic threat. The serpent is one of the most widespread and charged symbols in religious imagination.

The browser will find the serpent figures the atlas gathers. The entries describe each creature's mythological role, noting the very different meanings serpents carry between traditions.

Sources

1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree

2. Motif-Index of Folk-Literature: A Classification of Narrative Elements in Folktales, Ballads, Myths, Fables, Mediaeval Romances, Exempla, Fabliaux, Jest-Books and Local Legends

Stith Thompson, Indiana University Press, 1958B0-B99, Mythical Animals

3. Naturalis Historia (Natural History)

Pliny the ElderBook 8, on the basilisk of CyrenaicaView the Source

4. The Library (Bibliotheca)

Pseudo-Apollodorus, (various editions)the second labour of HeraclesView the Source

5. Encyclopedia of Hinduism

Denise Cush, Catherine Robinson and Michael York (eds.), Routledge, 2008the article on nagas and serpent-worshipView the Source

6. Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs

John Lindow, Oxford University Press, 2001the entry on JormungandrView the Source