nag

Nag is the primary antagonist of the celebrated short story Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, written by Rudyard Kipling and first published in his 1894 collection The Jungle Book. Within the narrative, Nag is a large, menacing black cobra who, alongside his mate Nagaina, terrorizes the garden of a British family living in colonial India. The character serves as the foil to the titular mongoose, representing the primal, hidden dangers of the natural landscape Kipling portrayed during his time in the Indian subcontinent.

Kipling’s portrayal of the cobra was designed to evoke a sense of creeping, serpentine dread, grounding the fable in the stark realities of British colonial life. While the character was illustrated by various artists over the decades, the quintessential image of Nag remains rooted in the original anthropomorphized descriptions provided by Kipling. The character has been received over the last century as a quintessential archetype of the 'villainous serpent' in children's literature, frequently analyzed for its reflections on colonial anxieties and the perceived hostility of the Indian environment.