In Slavic mythology spirits of death are believed to be placed in the snakes. It’s believed that every house has the snake that lives under the doorstep or fireplace which was in the middle of the house in the early Slavic times. The myth said that Slavs were burying their dead also under these two places. When you see a snake in your garden, you shouldn’t kill it. It’s a snake which gives a family a protection and if somebody kills it, spirits of ancestors would come to take somebody from our world. In rural Serbia, you can’t say zmija (snake). You can use euphemistic names for it like guja, krasnica, nepomenica. The last word literately means don’t say my name.

QUOTE FROM SLAVORUM.ORG