The serpent, or snake, is one of the oldest and most widespread mythological symbols. The word is derived from Latin serpens, a crawling animal or snake. Snakes have been associated with some of the oldest rituals known to humankind and represent dual expression of good and evil.

In some cultures, snakes were fertility symbols. For example, the Hopi people of North America performed an annual snake dance to celebrate the union of Snake Youth (a Sky spirit) and Snake Girl (an Underworld spirit) and to renew the fertility of Nature. During the dance, live snakes were handled and at the end of the dance the snakes were released into the fields to guarantee good crops. "The snake dance is a prayer to the spirits of the clouds, the thunder and the lightning, that the rain may fall on the growing crops." In other cultures, snakes symbolized the umbilical cord, joining all humans to Mother Earth. The Great Goddess often had snakes as her familiars—sometimes twining around her sacred staff, as in ancient Crete—and they were worshiped as guardians of her mysteries of birth and regeneration.

Serpent is a synonym for snake.

Serpent or The Serpent may also refer to:

Books, mythology, films, and plays

Music

Constellations

Serpent is the first book in the NUMA Files series of books co-written by best-selling author Clive Cussler and Paul Kemprecos, and was published in 1999. The main character of this series is Kurt Austin and Joe Zevala.

Summary

This is the first book with Cussler's new hero Kurt Austin.

The main plot is about a group of men who call themselves "The Brotherhood" and have ties to a 15th-century religious order. The group in modern times has attempted to hide and destroy all evidence of pre-Columbian contact between the New and Old Worlds.

The book begins with the wrecking of the ships SS Andrea Doria and MS Stockholm and moves to modern times with gun fights and chases from Boston and Washington DC to Africa and Mexico. The introduction of replacements for Dirk Pitt and his sidekick does not change Cussler's plot.

In 1956, off the coast of Nantucket Island, a crew member of the Stockholm causes the collision with the Andrea Doria then disappears. After the collision, a waiter aboard the Andrea Doria witnesses the murder of several men beside an armored vehicle in the hold of the ship.

The Snake (蛇) is one of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac and related to the Chinese calendar, as well as in related East Asian zodiacal or calendrical systems. The Year of the Snake is associated with the Earthly Branch symbol 巳.

According to one mythical legend, there is a reason for the order of the 12 animals in the 12-year cycle. The story goes that a race was held to cross a great river, and the order of the animals in the cycle was based upon their order in finishing the race. In this story, the Snake compensated for not being the best swimmer by hitching a hidden ride on the Horse's hoof, and when the Horse was just about to cross the finish line, jumping out, scaring the Horse, and thus edging it out for sixth place.

The same 12 animals are also used to symbolize the cycle of hours in the day, each being associated with a two-hour time period. The "hour" of the Snake is 9:00 to 11:00 a.m., the time when the sun warms up the earth, and Snakes are said to slither out of their holes.