Experts in ancient symbolism have been looking at Ouroboros all wrong. For the past six thousand years it was believed that the serpent eating its own tail symbolised the endlessness of infinity.
But Professor Malcolm Oddfellow from the Royal Institute of Blowing Funding has finally cracked the age old mystery. 'The snake is not eating its own tail, it is simply excreting a new snake. It's odd because what animal would be so dim and so greedy to consume itself? Other than humans who achieve positions of power, obvs?
'This turns everything we know about the fundamentals of the universe on its head. It means that infinity doesn't exist and was just a handy made-up tool for lazy mathematicians to bung in when they couldn't be bothered to count really high.
'We now realise that because infinity does not exist, the universe cannot be infinite and there is an end to it - just a really, really long way away. But the most important part of our new understanding is that the finite universe is filled with infinite snakes, all shat out of the bunghole of a curled up cobra.'
Ouroboros was unavailable for comment because it was sticking its own tail down its throat due to being so sick of humans misinterpreting it. And also because mythical symbols rarely comment on the record.