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Serpent (snake) Symbolic animal. Although the snake is not found in all Celtic countries (Ireland being famously free of them), the serpent exists in all Celtic mythologies; it never appears alone but always as the companion of a divinity. On the Continent, the snake was a typical symbol of warrior gods, perhaps because of its connections with wealth and FERTILITY. Often the snake was depicted with HORNS, suggesting a combination of reptile and mammal; the RAMHEADED SNAKE often appeared with the woodland god CERNUNNOS. The Romans associated gods who accompanied snakes with MERCURY, their divinity of commerce.
The alleged extermination of snakes from Ireland by ST. PATRICK was impossible, as they are not indigenous to that island. Nonetheless we find them in myth, usually as female figures such as the she-monsters CORRA and CAORANACH. Some interpret the dispatching of the serpent goddess as a memory of the dispute between arriving Christians and an older, goddess-honoring paganism; others find a hidden seasonal myth in the stories, with the serpent representing the winter goddess who gives way to her double, the blooming spring. In his role as serpent-destroyer, Patrick may have stepped in for an earlier hero god, for in the DINDSHENCHAS we find the god of healing, DIAN CÉCHT, slaying a serpent who would otherwise have devoured all the CATTLE in Ireland.
Snakes do live in Britain, where the adder was given special mythological consideration as the island’s only poisonous native snake. It was said to be a wise creature but very wily. In the Scottish Highlands the adder was associated with the weather-controlling HAG, the CAILLEACH. Sources
Carmichael, Alexander. Carmina Gadelica: Hymns and Incantations. Green, Miranda. Symbol and Image in Celtic Religious
