A sea serpent or sea dragon is a type of

dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...

sea monster Sea monsters are beings from folklore believed to dwell in the sea and often imagined to be of immense size. Marine monsters can take many forms, including sea dragons, sea serpents, or tentacled beasts. They can be slimy and scaly and are ofte ...

described in various mythologies, most notably Mesopotamian (

Tiamat In Mesopotamian religion, Tiamat ( akk, or , grc, Θαλάττη, Thaláttē) is a primordial goddess of the sea, mating with Abzû, the god of the groundwater, to produce younger gods. She is the symbol of the chaos of primordial creati ...

), Judaeo-Christian (

Leviathan Leviathan (; he, לִוְיָתָן, ) is a sea serpent noted in theology and mythology. It is referenced in several books of the Hebrew Bible, including Psalms, the Book of Job, the Book of Isaiah, the Book of Amos, and, according to some ...

), Greek (

Cetus Cetus () is a constellation, sometimes called 'the whale' in English. The Cetus (mythology), Cetus was a sea monster in Greek mythology which both Perseus and Heracles needed to slay. Cetus is in the region of the sky that contains other water- ...

Echidna Echidnas (), sometimes known as spiny anteaters, are quill-covered monotremes (egg-laying mammals) belonging to the family Tachyglossidae . The four extant species of echidnas and the platypus are the only living mammals that lay eggs and the ...

Hydra Hydra generally refers to: * Lernaean Hydra, a many-headed serpent in Greek mythology * ''Hydra'' (genus), a genus of simple freshwater animals belonging to the phylum Cnidaria Hydra or The Hydra may also refer to: Astronomy * Hydra (constel ...

Scylla In Greek mythology, Scylla), is obsolete. ( ; grc-gre, Σκύλλα, Skúlla, ) is a legendary monster who lives on one side of a narrow channel of water, opposite her counterpart Charybdis. The two sides of the strait are within an arrow's r ...

), and Norse (

Jörmungandr In Norse mythology, Jörmungandr ( non, Jǫrmungandr, lit=the Vast gand, see Etymology), also known as the Midgard Serpent or World Serpent ( non, Miðgarðsormr), is an unfathomably large sea serpent or worm who dwells in the world sea, encir ...

Mythology and folklore

Mediterranean and Western Asia

The mytheme, the chief god in the role of the hero slaying a sea serpent, is widespread both in the

ancient Near East The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran ( Elam, ...

and in

Indo-European mythology Proto-Indo-European mythology is the body of myths and deities associated with the Proto-Indo-Europeans, the hypothetical speakers of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language. Although the mythological motifs are not directly attested � ...

, e.g.

Lotan Lotan (Ugaritic: 𐎍𐎚𐎐''-ltn'', transliterated ''Lôtān'', ''Litan'', or ''Litānu'', meaning "coiled") is a servant of the sea god Yam defeated by the storm god Hadad-Baʿal in the Ugaritic ''Baal Cycle''. Lotan seems to have b ...

and

Hadad Hadad ( uga, ), Haddad, Adad (Akkadian: 𒀭𒅎 '' DIM'', pronounced as ''Adād''), or Iškur ( Sumerian) was the storm and rain god in the Canaanite and ancient Mesopotamian religions. He was attested in Ebla as "Hadda" in c. 2500 BCE. ...

and

Yahweh Yahweh *''Yahwe'', was the national god of ancient Israel and Judah. The origins of his worship reach at least to the early Iron Age, and likely to the Late Bronze Age if not somewhat earlier, and in the oldest biblical literature he posse ...

and

Marduk Marduk (Cuneiform: dAMAR.UTU; Sumerian: ''amar utu.k'' "calf of the sun; solar calf"; ) was a god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon. When Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of ...

(see also

Labbu The Labbu Myth, “The Slaying of Labbu”, or possibly: the ''Kalbu'' Myth – depending on the reading of the first character in the antagonist's name (which is always written as KAL and may be read as: ''Lab'', ''Kal'', ''Rib'' or ''Tan''); is an ...

Bašmu Bašmu or Bashmu ( akk, 𒈲𒊮𒉣𒇬, bašmu; cuneiform: MUŠ.ŠÀ.TÙR or MUŠ.ŠÀ.TUR, "Venomous Snake") was an ancient Mesopotamian mythological creature, a horned snake with two forelegs and wings. It was also the Akkadian name ...

Mušḫuššu The ''mušḫuššu'' (; formerly also read as or ) or mushkhushshu ( or ), is a creature from ancient Mesopotamian mythology. A mythological hybrid, it is a scaly animal with hind legs resembling the talons of an eagle, lion-like forelimbs, a ...

Illuyanka In Hittite mythology, Illuyanka was a serpentine dragon slain by Tarḫunz (), the Hittite incarnation of the Hurrian god of sky and storm. It is known from Hittite cuneiform tablets found at Çorum-Boğazköy, the former Hittite capital Hattusa ...

and Tarhunt,

Yammu Yam (also ''Yamm''; Semitic: ) is the god of the sea in the Canaanite pantheon. He takes the role of the adversary of Baal in the Ugaritic ''Baal Cycle''. The deity's name derives from the Canaanite word for "Sea", and is one name of the Uga ...

and

Baal Baal (), or Baal,; phn, , baʿl; hbo, , baʿal, ). ( ''baʿal'') was a title and honorific meaning "owner", "lord" in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during Ancient Near East, antiquity. From its use among people, it cam ...

in the

Baal Cycle The Baal Cycle is an Ugaritic cycle of stories about the Canaanite god Baʿal ( "Owner", "Lord"), a storm god associated with fertility. It is one of the Ugarit texts, dated to c. 1500-1300 BCE. The text identifies Baal as the god Hadad, t ...

etc. The

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

also has less mythological descriptions of large sea creatures as part of creation under God's command, such as the Tanninim mentioned in

Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning") ...

1:21 and the "great serpent" of Amos 9:3. In the

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to ...

, a pair of sea serpents killed

Laocoön Laocoön (; grc, , Laokóōn, , gen.: ), is a figure in Greek and Roman mythology and the Epic Cycle. Laocoon was a Trojan priest. He and his two young sons were attacked by giant serpents, sent by the gods. The story of Laocoön has been the s ...

and his sons when Laocoön argued against bringing the

Trojan Horse The Trojan Horse was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer's ''Iliad'', with the poem ending before the war is concluded, ...

into Troy. In antiquity and in the Bible, dragons were envisioned as huge serpentine monsters, with the image of a dragon with two or four legs and wings developing during the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

. Stories depicting sea-dwelling serpents may include the Babylonian myths of Tiamat, the myths of the Hydra, Scylla, Cetus, and Echidna in Greek mythology, and Christianity's Leviathan.

Northern Europe

Nordic mythology Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia, and into the Nordic folklore of the modern period. ...

, ''

'' (or '' Midgarðsormr'') was a sea serpent or

worm Worms are many different distantly related bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs, and no eyes (though not always). Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine polychaete wor ...

so long that it encircled the entire world,

Midgard In Germanic cosmology, Midgard (an anglicised form of Old Norse ; Old English , Old Saxon , Old High German , and Gothic ''Midjun-gards''; "middle yard", "middle enclosure") is the name for Earth (equivalent in meaning to the Greek term , "inhab ...

. Sea serpents also appear frequently in later

Scandinavian folklore Nordic folklore is the folklore of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. It has common roots with, and has been mutually influenced by, folklore in England, Germany, the Low Countries, the Baltic countries, Finland and Sapmi. ...

, particularly in that of Norway, such as an account that in 1028 AD,

Saint Olaf Olaf II Haraldsson ( – 29 July 1030), later known as Saint Olaf (and traditionally as St. Olave), was King of Norway from 1015 to 1028. Son of Harald Grenske, a petty king in Vestfold, Norway, he was posthumously given the title ''Rex Perpet ...

killed a sea serpent in

Valldal Sylte or Valldal is a village in Fjord Municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. The village is situated at the southern end of the Valldalen valley along the shore of the Norddalsfjorden near the mouth of the Valldøla river, just west ...

in Norway, throwing its body onto the mountain Syltefjellet. Marks on the mountain are associated with the legend. In Swedish

ecclesiastic {{Short pages monitor