Illyrians, Albanians and the snake of the house

The legend says: It is believed that every house has its own snake. They are usually calm. It happens that their length is over two meters, but the people call them "house snakes" or "house snake".

They move or walk around the house freely and no one dares to molest them, so we often find them in bedspreads or bedspreads, under pillows, in baby cribs, and so on. It is given milk in the designated places, where the house snake usually has its exit. It is said that if we strangle the snake, then it punishes them so that terrible events happen in that house, their house burns down, one of the family members may die, etc.

It is interesting to mention the case of protection from magic through the head of the snake. Beautiful girls and brides, in order to protect themselves from witchcraft, wear the snake's head around their necks and between their breasts.

In fact, when someone accidentally strangled a snake during their daily work in the fields, they would take its head, which could later be held by a daughter or daughter-in-law of the house as needed.

The snake's head worn around the neck or between the breasts is a ritual inherited from the Illyrians, who believed in the protective power of the snake.

Even to this day, among Albanians, the snake is considered the "guardian of the house" and it is believed that every house somewhere in its foundations has its own snake that protects the house. Therefore, when he appears in the backyard, he is neither choked nor harassed, but left alone. So, the head of the snake among the Albanians had the meaning of a safety object for the individual and the house.

No animal in the religious symbolism of the Illyrians played as important a role as the snake. This mysterious animal, with an extraordinary shape, which silently crawls and emerges from the depths of the earth where the demons and gods of the underworld live, as well as the souls of the dead, which with its bite can instantly suffocate not only the animal , but also the man himself, has inspired respect from fear. It is no coincidence, then, that the snake plays an important role in the religions and mythologies of all the peoples who live in the countries where snakes live, from America to the West, and to Asia in the East, from Paleolithic times to our days.

Among the Illyrians, especially among those of the South, the snake is the animal which, with its multiple meanings, occupies the central place in the symbolic religious structure. He is a totem animal and head of the Illyrian tribe, symbol of wisdom, evil, health, fertility, personification of the soul of the deceased, protector of the hearth of the house and above all mythological animals. /bota.al/