Змея как сексуальный и брачный партнер человека. (Еще раз о семантике образа змеи в фольклорной традиции европейских народов)
Serpent as a Bride and an Intimate Partner of a Man. Once more about the semantics of serpent in European folk-lore

Author(s): Andrei I. Behr-Glinka
Subject(s): Anthropology, Customs / Folklore, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, History of Religion
Published by: Издательский дом Stratum, Университет «Высшая антропологическая школа»
Keywords: European traditional beliefs; serpent worship; sexual intercourse in traditional beliefs; magic tale; genius loci; reincarnation; chthonic beings; ancestors; animal bride
Summary/Abstract: The article examines the snake as a mythological character of folk traditions of Europe, Western and Southern Asia and Africa, in the aspect of their sex and marital connection with a person, idea of the relationship of man and snake, as reflected in the fairy-tale and folklore. Fairy tales and ethnographic evidence reveal a snake as a human counterpart (both living and dead), the connection with the birth of the human snake, the reincarnation of the deceased into a snake and the snake — into a newborn. Special attention is paid to the idea of the snake as a tribal ancestor (totemism), and how the snake is related to male and female initiation. The article addresses the relationship of the snake with the elements (fire, water, earth, air), parts of the home (fireplace, oven), the world of plants, the world of the dead.

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