The Mythological Character of the Household Guardian Serpent and its Names in Modern Greek, Albanian and Balkan Slavic Traditional Cultures

This article surveys Modern Greek folk beliefs about the beneficent household guardian spirit, usually depicted as a serpent, analyzing their relation to corresponding narratives recorded from Balkan Slavs (Bulgarians, Macedonians, Serbians) and Albanians. Similarities in terms of interpreting the mythological character may testify to the archaic nature of such beliefs and point to a common original source of the mythological conceptions. These include: identifying the guardian spirit with the master of the house and a plot concerning a snake protecting small children or an heir; practices connected with it, like ritual feeding and the snake’s burial in a shroud like a person in the case of its accidental killing; as well as the form of the mythonym “domestic snake,” reflecting its place of habitation (Gk. σπιτικό φίδι, σπιτόφιδο, Alb. gjarpri i shtëpisë, bolla e shtëpisë, Bulg. домашарка, Serb. домаћа змиja, кућна змиjа, Hrv. zmija kućarica). These testify to the archaic nature of such beliefs, going back to the times of the Proto-Indo-European community. At the same time, some well-developed Balkan Slavic motifs connected to the house serpent have no equivalent in the Modern Greek tradition (e.g., a snake milking the livestock). Gradually the household guardian spirit begins to acquire features of other mythological characters. First of all, some are associated with a house (house guardians, originating from the souls or shadows of animals or people sacrificed during the house’s construction, and guardians of treasure), or connected with other places of human economic activity (e.g., as protectors of fields and vineyards). Secondly, some are associated with creatures having the nature of a snake (e.g., the queen of snakes, a spirit that enriches), which leads to a transformation of the image of the house snake