Snakes, dragons, and other mythical creatures

They play and dance, and think they fly. They think they are gaining all the joy in the world. They do not know they are in the mouths of beasts. This Eros reveals villainous passion.

Since silent and mysterious Prehistory, when man realised that death is the certain ending of his existence, the fear of the unknown and the supernatural became part of his life. To become able to control and exorcise this fear, he had to give it names and forms, and make up stories in which it would defeat or reconcile with it.

From mythology to folk tradition, Count Dracula, and aliens, man has created monsters for all purposes. To warn of dangers, to justify temptations, to distinguish and isolate the other, to give form to the unknown. To chase away its fears, but also to reveal the dark side of himself.

In the end, some of them are appropriated, turned into symbols, given abhorrent powers to use them and face the enemy of this world or the other.

This was also the fate of Medusa, one of the three Gorgons (Mermaids). A beautiful girl with rich long hair, full of golden curls, as described by Ovid in his Metamorphoses. The evolution in the world of human gods was almost expected…

Poseidon, dazzled by her beauty, chased her while transformed into a horse and raped her in the temple of Athena. Athena, enraged, as she could not punish Poseidon, punished Medusa instead, and transformed her into a horrible, terrifying creature. Her golden curls turned into snakes and a curse would accompany her forever. Anyone who happened to look into her eyes would be petrified in an instant.

The bad luck of the poor Gorgon/ Mermaid continued even after she had become a monster with terrifying powers. The hero Perseus, with the help of Athena, used his shield as a mirror, avoided her gaze and took her head. Thus, he escaped and did not fall into the trap of the king Polydectes of Serifos who wanted him dead. Since then, the head of the Gorgon Medusa adorns the shield of Athena, every warrior in need of her divine protection to fend off enemies.

Out of Medusa, as Perseus was cutting off her head with his sword, her two children with Poseidon sprang up. Chrysaoras, a giant warrior with a golden sword and a magnificent, winged horse, Pegasus, whose name means born near the springs of the Ocean.

As soon as Perseus saw him, he rides him to Ethiopia in order to save Andromeda, who was awaiting her fate tied to a rock, a sacrifice waiting for Cetus, sent by her father, Cepheus. To appease it and leave the people of the land in peace. Of course, Perseus kills the monster and marries the beautiful girl.

Pegasus the divine horse quickly found his place on Olympus, carrying Zeus’ lightning from Hephaestus’ workshop to the father of the gods. In Corinth, as he was quenching his thirst near the fountain of Peirene, he was captured by Bellerophon. Together they completed many great feats, including killing the terrible monster, Chimera.

Most of the monsters were hybrid beasts, their body being part animal, bird, or even human, a reminder to everyone of their duality. Centaurs are a typical example. With the body of a horse and a human torso, the sons of Ixion were wild, and loved drinking and women. A very dangerous combination, especially for their long-standing enemies, the civilised Lapiths. At the wedding of the Lapith Pirithous to Hippodameia, terrible events came to pass, and it was only with the help of Theseus that the barbaric Centaurs were successfully slain. The wise Centaurs Pholus and Chiron were exceptions, perhaps because they had a different father.

Originating from the East, the griffin is another hybrid beast. With the body of a lion or, more rarely, a horse, it had the head and wings of an eagle, thus treading on earth and heaven. Griffins accompanied the Egyptian Pharaohs, griffins guarded the throne room at Knossos, griffins draw the chariot on this signet ring.

Griffins of apotropic nature were used to decorate lebetes, the most precious offerings of the rich believers to the sanctuaries of their time, revealing how close ties with the East and its art had always been. Herodotus, however, tells a beautiful story about them that takes place in the North featuring the gold diggers Arimaspi and the Griffins, the devotees of Apollo…

“In Northern Europe there is the most gold, but, then again, I cannot say with certainty how gold is produced, as it is said that one-eyed people called the Arimaspi steal it from the griffins. I do not believe this, namely, that there are one-eyed people who are of a different nature than the rest of people. The remotest of the lands, although almost cut-off from all the things of the rest of the world, are likely to have what we consider to be the finest and rarest.” Herodotus, The Histories, 3.116

How nice that the storyteller of History weaves his tale! He rationally questions the existence of one-eyed people, but he does not doubt in the least the existence of hybrid Griffins. But who would doubt their existence, when they participate in the worship of the beloved Dionysus carrying him and making sure his cup is always filled with wine?

Besides their diverse presence in myths, Griffins were also a symbol of the city of Abdera, linking their presence there with the inhabitants of the Ionian city of Teos, who arrived as colonial refugees escaping the Persian yoke. In their new homeland they minted the same currency as they had used in the past. On one side they placed Apollo and on the other a griffin ready to fly.

This cute two-headed dog with round buns – offerings in its mouth, is the dreaded and terrifying Cerberus, the guardian of the underworld. Myth would have him have with three heads and a serpent’s tail, and he was Heracles’ last victim in his series of 12 labours. In cult symbolism, however, this was the creature that held the line between the two worlds, of the living and the dead, keeping it firm and impenetrable.

A three-figure hybrid, the Sphinx, enigmatic and dark. It is not associated with a particular god, as is usually the case with other beasts. On the contrary, it is almost identified with Boeotia and the Theban mythological cycle. With the body of a lion, the head of a woman, and the wings of a large bird, this giant Sphinx was a tribute by the powerful and rich island of Naxos to the oracle at Delphi.

Her family tree is ancient and divine. As in most cases, there are many versions. However, the most prevalent is the one that says that her parents were Echidna and Typhon and her brothers and sisters were other famous monsters, the most famous being the Hydra, Cerberus and the Nemean Lion.

The Sphinx appears in Thebes while King Laius is away at Delphi, who travelled there to learn about the fate of his child, which he abandoned aiming for its demise to save his own life. The terrible beast settled on Mount Phikion at the entrance of the city and to any traveller who failed to answer the riddle she asked met the horrible fate by eaten him. The rest is “history” with Oedipus, Laius’ “lost” son, defeating it.

Probably because of its mysterious nature and love for riddles, the Sphinx is associated with wisdom, while, like other beasts, it also appears in Mycenaean, Minoan, and even earlier, in Eastern art, revealing its origin in this distant world, which has given so much to the stories, myths, and art of the civilization that was born in this land.

As is often the case with beasts, it is of an intense apotropaic nature, guarding tombs and sanctuaries, adorning funereal steles and vases, while as a figurine was offered as a funereal gift. Thus, it slowly lost its monstrous character and acquired a more vague and symbolic nature, becoming a beloved decorative subject on all kinds of objects.

Beasts were certainly not exclusive products of the old, pagan world, which feared the transcendent and interpreted the unknown with fascinating tales about mythical creatures. One of the most popular Christian saints, Saint George, is always dressed in armour, and from the 12^th century onwards is depicted slaying a winged dragon with his spear, while riding his white horse.

Many miracles are attributed to him. Some seem completely unreal — but isn’t that why they are considered miracles, after all — and have been disputed for ages. But one of them, the one that is resembles of the ancient myth of Perseus and Andromeda, was to become his trademark. Outside Cyrene in Libya, a dragon sat next to a spring preventing people from fetching water. Local people appeased it by sending a child for it to devour every day. On the day that it was to devour the king’s daughter, Saint George arrived and saved the girl. And because marrying the princess does not fit with the life of a saint, the king and his family were baptised and converted to Christianity.

Another military saint, often depicted trampling a dragon, is Saint Menas. Although his life is not connected with the city of Kastoria, after being active in Egypt in early Christian times, the residents of Kastoria became very fond of him, as it was on the day of his feast, 11 November 1912, that their city was liberated from the Ottomans without any losses.

Here is another military saint riding a white horse killing a giant serpent. This is Saint Theodore the Tyro, who quickly showed particular zeal and bravery. His reputation grew when a rich woman asked for his help, and he killed with his spear a monstrous serpent that was terrorising the local inhabitants.

The serpent is a symbol of Evil in Christian mythology. It is the temptation and the corrupter. It is the cause of man’s fall and his expulsion from the Garden of Eden. It is the cause of the end of innocence. It is, however, also what caused the awakening of conscience, the knowledge itself.

Although snakes were real, not mythical creatures, they became a symbol of ambiguity. A symbol of life, death, and rebirth. A symbol of good, evil, but above all, of wisdom and knowledge. From the snake goddess of Minoan Crete to the cult of Asclepius, snakes appear in many myths either as a protagonist or as a complementary or symbolic feature. Cecrops himself, the mythical founder of Athens, was half-man half-serpent; and beneath the rock of the Acropolis nested Erichthonius, the son of Athena and Hephaestus, also half-man, half-serpent, connecting the two worlds, of the living and the dead.

However, there was also Agathodaemon, the guardian serpent. It often took the form of Zeus or Dionysus and was depicted holding the Horn of Amalthea and wheat. Although it did not lose its chthonic nature, it symbolised wealth, fertility, and eudaimonia (bliss).

Their chthonic character and symbolism is revealed by the snakes that are wrapped around the tree trunks on the funerary reliefs of the deceased whom the family or the city decided to declare heroes and bury them with similar honours. The dead hero, dressed in his warrior’s garb, rides his horse in sorrow and encounters a serpent wrapped tightly around a tree trunk, reminding him that his path leads to the world of the dead. Sometimes he is alone…

…other times, he is accompanied by his beloved hounds…

and there are even occasions when his family is there to bid him farewell…

Serpents has never lost their transcendent nature and so lived alongside dragons and other mythical beasts that have accompanied our existence since the distant past, from the times when people first encountered the monstrous fossils of dinosaurs, to the moment when Alexander the Great killed the Accursed Serpent…