The Salamander
The creature that lives in the fire.
The Salamander: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The ancients believed the salamander could live in fire, and Pliny thought it cold enough to quench it. Paracelsus made the salamanders the spirits of fire, as the undines are of water, and for the alchemists the salamander was the spirit that endures the fire of the work unharmed.
The Salamander: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Pliny’s salamander, the salamander Benvenuto Cellini saw in the fire as a boy, the emblem of Francis I of France.
From the Sources
Bulfinch quotes Benvenuto Cellini's account of his father seeing in the flames of a fire a little animal like a lizard that could live in the hottest part of it.
“…looked into the flames and saw a little animal resembling a lizard, which could live in the hottest part of that element.”
Thomas Bulfinch, Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Fable, The Age of Chivalry, Legends of Charlemagne, The Age of Fable, Chapter XXXVI, "Modern Monsters": "The Salamander". Complete in one volume, Project Gutenberg eBook #4928. The text, read in part
Pliny describes the salamander as a lizard-like animal, starred all over, so intensely cold that it puts out fire by its contact, as ice does.
“…the salamander, an animal like a lizard in shape, and with a body starred all over, never comes out except during heavy showers, and disappears the moment it becomes fine. This animal is so intensely cold as to extinguish fire by its contact, in the same way as ice does.”
Pliny the Elder, The Natural History of Pliny, Vol. II, Book X, Chapter 86, "Salamanders". Translated, with copious notes and illustrations, by the late John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., and H. T. Riley, Esq., B.A.; London: Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden, MDCCCLV (Project Gutenberg eBook #60230). The text, read in part
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
Where to Read
- “Paracelsus as a Spiritual Phenomenon,” CW 13
- Psychology and Alchemy, CW 12
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among Serpents and Dragons
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Salamander.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/salamander.
Nearby in the alphabet: Sacrifice: Giving something up, so that something new may live. The Sacrificial Meal: Eating the god: the sacrifice shared and taken in. Salome: The anima as Jung first met her: blind, and loving. Salt: Wisdom, and the bitterness it costs.