Philosophical Library/Open Road

Serpent (or Snake) If all symbols are really functions and signs of things imbued with energy, then the serpent or snake is, by analogy, symbolic of energy itself—of force pure and simple; hence its ambivalence and multivalencies.

Easter Sunday to place herbs and simples in a wooden vessel together with the dried carcase of a snake, which every person present must have touched with his, or her, fingers.

The herbs were then burned.