snakes and snake goddess montage

Jubilee Line

Overview

Snakes and dragons in literature and legend

'You run through them,' said Quintin.

'Well, starting from the oldest,' said Miranda, 'a Minoan snake goddess. That's a good start. The figurine was found in the Palace of King Minos on Crete that Sir Arthur Evans excavated. Dating to the second millennium BC. Then there is the snake lurking beneath Athene's shield. The Ancient Greek goddess Athene. And Aesculapius, whom the Roman poet Ovid depicts as a snake leaving Greece for Rome.'

'The god of healing?'

'Well exactly. The god of healing. Like a snake shedding its skin and renewing itself.'

'Didn't Saint Patrick chase all the snakes out of Ireland?

'Yes, he did. Along with chasing all the paganism out.'

'I wonder if that meant the same thing?'

'Possibly. I don't know. There is not much in the way of snakes in Irish or Welsh mythology. But snake motifs played a great part in Celtic Iron Age art and design, in Britain and in continental Europe. There was a god with snakes for hair in the old Roman Baths at Bath, in Somerset.'

'Just like the gorgon Medusa then?'

'Yes. And the Iron Age designs are often called dragons. They chase each other's tails. The symbol of Wales is a dragon. And there are loads of them in medieval romance and Arthurian legend. Sir Tristrem fights a dragon in Ireland. Sir Lancelot fights with one as well. There is a battle between a red dragon and a white dragon in the medieval story of Merlin. And in medieval romance they abound: Sir Eglamour of Artois, Torrent of Portyngale, Sir Bevis of Hampton, Guy of Warwick: they all fight with one and defeat it…'

'Sir Degaré….'

'Yes, Sir Degaré, although that's really a Breton lai. And in another Arthurian legend, The Fair Unknown releases a woman from captivity when her serpent scales and wings fall away, in a medieval story written by the same author who retold the Breton lai Lanval, about a knight who was taken to Avalon by his Otherworldly princess.'

'William Blake drew children sitting on a snake, in an elegy for a lost child,' said Quintin.

'And Edmund Spenser, in Elizabethan England, depicts Saint George fighting a dragon beside a Pool of Life, where, if you are thrown into it dead, you come out of it alive and well again.'

'Like a spring of healing in Irish mythology then,' suggested Miranda.

'Well, here it all is,' said Quintin. 'You can flick through it by tapping the grey button, or dive deeper by clicking one of the summaries.'

Take a quick tour

The Jubilee Line passes through a succession of places in time and location where snakes or dragons are to be found in literature, legend or mythology. Click or tap on the circles and tunnel markers to dive deeper into the discoveries that Quintin and Miranda have made. Alternatively, click or tap on the large grey button for a quick journey through the summaries. Click or tap on any summary to dive deeper.

Snakes and Dragons

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Medieval Romance

Sir Eglamour of Artois

14th century, Middle English: 15th and 16th century manuscripts at Cambridge University Library, Lincoln Cathedral Library, British Library, Bodleian Library.

It was not long before the dragon itself suddenly appeared and knocked Sir Eglamour off his horse. The knight got up and set his shield against the blows that rained down on him, and from the fire that came out of its mouth.

Medieval Romance

Guy of Warwick

12th century Anglo-Norman French | 14th and 15th century Middle English, various manuscripts, including Cambridge University Library MS Ff 2.38 and National Library of Scotland MS Advocates 19.2.1, the Auchinleck Manuscript.

When Guy had recovered, he got up and went to measure the dragon: it was sixty feet in length.

Middle English Breton lais

Sir Degaré

14th century, Middle English: British Library, Cambridge University Library, Bodleian Library, Advocates Library of Scotland.

The dragon saw Degaré coming and turned his attention towards him, gaping and snorting as though he would swallow him whole.

Medieval Romance

Sir Bevis of Hampton

13th century Anglo-Norman French | 14th century Middle English, various manuscripts, including National Library of Scotland MS Advocates 19.2.1, the Auchinleck Manuscript; Cambridge University Library MS Ff 2.38; Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale MS XIII.B.29.

When the dragon caught sight of Bevis, it began to roar and cry out so loudly that the sound was heard in hell itself.

Medieval England

Displaying who you are: the Collar of Esses

late-14th and early-15th century, England.

These collars first appeared in the 1370s, among the entourage of John of Gaunt, son of King Edward III, as though as a sign of allegiance.

Medieval Arthurian Legend

Thomas Chestre: The Fair Unknown

14th century, Middle English, British Museum, Lambeth Palace Library London, Bodleian Library Oxford, Biblioteca Nazionale Naples.

The young knight’s heart filled with wonder and awe as he watched a snake emerging, a snake with a woman’s face.

Medieval Arthurian Legend

Sir Thomas Malory: Le Morte d'Arthur

15th century, late-Medieval English.

Sir Perceval dreams that two ladies come to him; one is seated upon a lion and the other upon a snake.

Medieval Arthurian Legend

The Story of Sir Tristrem

13th century Middle High German | 14th century Middle English, National Library of Scotland MS Advocates 19.2.1, the Auchinleck Manuscript.

The people were trying desperately to escape from a dragon.

Medieval Arthurian Legend

Sir Thomas Malory: Le Morte d'Arthur

15th century, late-Medieval English.

Sir Lancelot lifts up the lid of the tomb and sees "a fyendely dragon spyttynge fyre oute of hys mowthe."

Medieval Arthurian Legend

Of Arthur and of Merlin

14th century Middle English. National Library of Sotland MS Advocates 19.2.1, the Auchinleck Manuscript; Lincoln's Inn Library, Hale MS 150.

Then the white dragon reared up and the fight began anew.

Elizabethan English Poetry

Edmund Spenser: The Faerie Qveene

16th century, Elizabethan English. Numerous printed copies.

Angered, the dragon sends a stream of flames towards the Red Cross Knight.

Georgian English Poetry

William Blake: The Book of Thel

1757–1827, English poet, artist and engraver. London.

'Art thou a Worm? Image of weakness, art thou but a Worm? I see thee like an infant wrapped in the Lilly's leaf.'

Georgian English Poetry

William Blake: The Prophetic works

1757–1827, English poet, artist and engraver. London.

'Thought chang’d the infinite to a serpent, that which pitieth to a devouring flame; and man fled from its face and hid in forests of the night…'

Georgian English Poetry

William Blake: Tiriel

1757–1827, English poet, artist and engraver. London.

'Let snakes rise from thy bedded locks & laugh among thy curls!'

The Bronze Age Mediterranean

Snake Goddesses

17th–16th century BC, Minoan culture: Crete and the southern Aegean.

Two well-known Minoan figurines of a Snake Goddess were found buried near the Central Court of the Palace of Knossos, on Crete, dating to the second millennium BC.

Iron Age Europe

Ancient Greece and Roman Britain

Classical Athens | Aquae Sulis (Roman Bath)

Statues from classical Greece and Rome show the goddess Athene with a python at her feet.

Iron Age Britain

Celtic Art

Iron Age, c. 300 BC, Hammersmith, London, England.

'In the third century BC, dragon-pairs appear on scabbards across Celtic Europe as far east as Romania.'

Iron Age Britain

Celtic Art

Late Iron Age, Deal, Kent | Snailwell, Cambridgeshire.

Snakes with their tails in each other’s mouths, stylised into an interconnected spiral motif.

Medieval Icelandic Sagas

The Saga of the Volsungs

13th century, Old Norse, from much older oral tradition.

'Sigurd should eat the dragon's heart himself,' chirps a bird, 'and then he will be the wisest man on Earth.'

Icelandic saga

The Tale of Ragnar's Sons

13th century, Old Norse.

The snake grows and grows until it surrounds the building where Earl Herraud’s daughter lives, biting its own tail.

Viking Romance

The Saga of Arrow-Odd

13th century, Old Norse.

The giant mother of Ogmund Eythjof’s-Killer has taken on the form of a dragon.

Scandinavian Mythology

The Poetic Edda

13th century, Old Norse, Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, Reykjavik.

A snake lies along the sword's edge and on the boss a serpent chases its tail.

Scandinavian Mythology

The Poetic Edda

13th century, Old Norse, Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, Reykjavik.

The Midgard Serpent was a huge snake that encircled the Earth, biting its own tail beneath an ocean that separated the world of men from the land of the giants.

Medieval Icelandic Sagas

The Saga of Eirek the Traveller

13th century, Old Norse.

Gripping a companion with his left hand and a sword in his right, Eirek strode fearlessly into the dragon’s mouth.

Roman Epic Verse

Virgil: The Aeneid

Written between 30 BC and 19 BC, Classical Latin verse.

A huge snake emerges from under the mound, coils around the barrow and slides over the altars, eating something of the offerings intended for Anchises.

Ancient Greek and Roman Mythology

Asclepius | Aesculapius

Classical Greece | Roman Empire. Patron of the medical profession to the present-day.

Leaving his human form behind in the Grecian temple, Aesculapius the Healer slithered down to the Roman ship in the likeness of a serpent.

Ancient Greek and Roman Mythology

Hesiod's Theogony: the Gorgon Medusa

8th century BC, ancient Greek, composed (reputedly) at the base of Mount Helicon, Boeotia, Greece.

The Gorgon Medusa, who lived near the Gardens of the Hesperides and the apples of immortality, is often shown with serpents for hair.

Hebrew and Christian Religion

The Garden of Eden

Holy Bible: Genesis, compiled c. 500 BC, Hebrew, Middle East.

'And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened... '