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Document Details : Title: Problematic Snake Children of Armenia Author(s): RUSSELL, J.R. Journal: Revue des Études Arméniennes Volume: 25 Date: 1994-1995 Pages: 77-96 DOI: 10.2143/REA.25.0.2003775 Abstract : The body and means of locomotion of the inoffensive serpent are so appreciably different from those of mankind that for millennia we have made the creature a symbol of the uncanny, and, most often, of the sinister. The separate religious traditions of Iran and Israel have developed parallel systems of lore, so well known by their prominence to students of either culture as to appear wholly unremarkable, in which the snake is affiliated with, or symbolic of the devil. In Christian Armenia, these Zoroastrian and Judaeo-Christian symbolisms were fused together to produce an Irano-Semitic complex of the representation of evil, in literature, art, and theology. In Armenian folktales of recent centuries, this complex, partly perhaps because it was ubiquitous and became commonplace, has lost its fearsomeness. |
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