NOTES ON SERPENTS.
(Vol. ii., p. 130.; Vol. vi., p. 177.—Vol. iii., p. 490.; Vol. vi., pp. 42. 147.)
Loskiel, in his account of the Moravian missions to the North American Indians[[5]], tells us that,—
"The Indians are remarkably skilled in curing the bite of venomous serpents, and have found a medicine peculiarly adapted to the bite of each species. For example, the leaf of the Rattlesnake-root (Polygala senega) is the most efficacious remedy against the bite of this dreadful animal. God has mercifully granted it to grow in the greatest plenty in all parts most infested by the rattlesnake. It is very remarkable that this herb acquires its greatest perfection just at the time when the bite of these serpents is the most dangerous.... Virginian Snake-root (Aristolochia serpentaria) chewed, makes also an excellent poultice for wounds of this sort.... The fat of the serpent itself, rubbed into the wound, is thought to be efficacious. The flesh of the rattlesnake, dried and boiled to a broth, is said to be more nourishing than that of the viper, and of service in consumptions. Their gall is likewise used as medicine."—P. 146.
Pigs are excepted from the dreadful effects of their bite; they will even attack and eat them. It is said that, if a rattlesnake is irritated and cannot be revenged, it bites itself, and dies in a few hours:
"Wird dieses Thier zornig gemacht, und es kann sich nicht rächen, so beiszt es sich selbst, und in wenig Stunden ist es todt."—P. 113.[[6]]
"I have seen some of our Canadians eat these rattlesnakes repeatedly. The flesh is very white, and they assured me had a delicious taste. Their manner of dressing them is very simple.... Great caution, however, is required in killing a snake for eating; for if the first blow fails, or only partially stuns him, he instantly bites himself in different parts of the body, which thereby become poisoned, and would prove fatal to any person who should partake of it."—Cox's Adv. on the Columbia River: Lond. 1832, p. 74.
"Dr. Fordyce knew the black servant of an Indian merchant in America, who was fond of soup made of rattlesnakes, in which he always boiled the head along with the rest of the animal, without any regard to the poisons."—Rees's Cyclopædia.
"There is a religious sect in Africa, not far from Algiers, which eat the most venomous serpents alive; and certainly, it is said, without extracting their fangs. They declare they enjoy the privilege from their founder. The creatures writhe and struggle between their teeth; but possibly, if they do bite them, the bite is innocuous."
Mrs. Crowe, in the concluding chapter of her Night-side of Nature, gives the testimony of an eye-witness to "the singular phenomenon to be observed by placing a scorpion and a mouse together under a glass."
"It is known that stags renew their age by eating serpents; so the phœnix is restored by the nest of spices she makes to burn in. The pelican hath the same virtue, whose right foot, if it be put under hot dung, after three months a pelican will be bred from it. Wherefore some physicians, with some confections made of a viper and hellebore, and of some of the flesh of these creatures, do promise to restore youth, and sometimes they do it."[[7]]
On reading any of our old herbalists, one would imagine that serpents (and those of the worst kind) abounded in "Merrie Englande," and that they were the greatest bane of our lives. It is
hard to stumble on a plant that is not an antidote to the bite of serpents. Our old herbals were compiled, however, almost entirely from the writings of the ancients, and from foreign sources. The ancients had a curious notion relative to the plant Basil (Oscimum basilicum), viz., "That there is a property in Basil to propagate scorpions, and that the smell thereof they are bred in the brains of men." Others deny this wonderful property, and make Basil a simple antidote.
"According unto Oribasius, physician unto Julian, the Africans, men best experienced in poisons, affirm, whosoever hath eaten Basil, although he be stung with a scorpion, shall feel no pain thereby, which is a very different effect, and rather antidotally destroying than seminally promoting its production."—Sir Thomas Browne, Vulgar Errors.
An old writer gives the following anecdote in point:
"Francis Marcio, an eminent statesman of Genoa, having sent an ambassador from that republic to the Duke of Milan, when he could neither procure an audience of leave from that prince, nor yet prevail with him to ratify his promises made to the Genoese, taking a fit opportunity, presented a handful of the herb Basil to the duke. The duke, somewhat surprised, asked what that meant? 'Sir,' replied the ambassador, 'this herb is of that nature, that if you handle it gently without squeezing, it will emit a pleasant and grateful scent; but if you squeeze and gripe it, 'twill not only lose its colour, but it will become productive of scorpions in a little time."—The Entertainer: London, 1717, p. 23.
Pliny tells us that a decoction from the leaves of the ash tree, given as a drink, is such a remedy that "nothing so soveraigne can be found against the poison of serpents;" and farther:
"That a serpent dare not come neare the shaddow of that tree. The serpent will chuse rather to goe into the fire than to flie from it to the leaves of the ash. A wonderful goodnesse of Dame Nature, that the ash doth bloome and flourish alwaies before that serpents come abroad, and never sheddeth leaves, but continueth green untill they be retired into their holes, and hidden within the ground."
The ancient opinion respecting the rooted antipathy between the ash and the serpent is not to be explained merely by the fact in natural history of its being an antidote, but it has a deeply mythical meaning. See, in the Prose Edda, the account of the ash Yggdrasill, and the serpents gnawing its roots. Loskiel corroborates Pliny as to the ash being an antidote:
"A decoction of the buds or bark of the white ash (Fraxinus carolina) taken inwardly is said to be a certain remedy against the effects of poison," i.e. of the rattlesnake.
Serpents afford Pliny a theme for inexhaustible wonders. The strangest of his relations perhaps is where he tells us that serpents, "when they have stung or bitten a man, die for very greefe and sorrow that they have done such a mischeefe." He makes a special exception, however, of the murderous salamander, who has no such "pricke and remorse of conscience," but would "destroy whole nations at one time," if not prevented. In this same book (xxix.) he gives a receipt for making the famous theriacum, or treacle, of vipers' flesh. Another strange notion of the ancients was "that the marrow of a man's backe bone will breed to a snake" (Hist. Nat., x. 66.). This perhaps, originally, had a mystic meaning; for a great proportion of the innumerable serpent stories have a deeper foundation than a credulous fancy or lively imagination.
Take, for instance, the wide-spread legend of the sea-serpent. Mr. Deane says,—
"The superstition of 'the serpent in the sea' was known to the Chinese, as we observed in the chapter on the 'Serpent-worship of China.' But it was doubtless, at one time, a very general superstition among the heathens, for we find it mentioned by Isaiah, ch. xxvii. 1., 'In that day the Lord, with his sore and great and strong sword, shall punish Leviathan the piercing serpent, even Leviathan that crooked serpent: and He shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.'"
In Blackwood's Magazine, vol. ii. p. 645., vol. iv. pp. 33. 205., may be found some interesting papers on the "Scrakin, or Great Sea Serpent."
Mr. Deane's Worship of the Serpent (London, 1830); and The Cross and the Serpent, by the Rev. Wm. Haslam (London, 1849), are noble works both of them, and ought to be in the hands of every Christian scholar. In these two words, "Cross" and "Serpent," we have an epitome of the history of the world and the human race, as well as the ground-work for all our hopes and fears. In them are bound up the highest mysteries, the truest symbolism, the deepest realities, and our nearest and dearest interests.
Lord Bacon thus narrates the classical fable which accounts for the serpent's being gifted with the power of restoring youth:
"The gods, in a merry mood, granted unto men not only the use of fire, but perpetual youth also, a boon most acceptable and desirable. They being as it were overjoyed, did foolishly lay this gift of the gods upon the back of an ass, who, being wonderfully oppressed with thirst and near a fountain, was told by a serpent (which had the custody thereof) that he should not drink unless he would promise to give him the burthen that was on his back. The silly ass accepted the condition, and so the restoration of youth (sold for a draught of water) passed from men to serpents."—The Wisdom of the Ancients (Prometheus, xxvi.).
That this, as well as the whole of the legend relating to Prometheus, is a confused account of an early tradition relative to the Fall of Man, and his forfeiture of immortality, is obvious to any
unprejudiced mind. Lord Bacon's explanation shows that he has been overreached by his fancy and ingenuity.
In all the ancient mysteries, the serpent was more or less conspicuously introduced, and always as a symbol of the invigorating or active power of nature. The serpent was an emblem of the sun. Solar, Phallic, and Serpent worship, are all forms of a single worship.[[8]] The Hindu Boodh, Chinese Fo, Egyptian Osiris, Northern Woden, Mexican Quetzalcoatl (feathered serpent), are one and the same. (See the American Archæological Researches, No. 1.; The Serpent Symbol, and the Worship of the Reciprocal Principles of Nature in America, by E. G. Squier: New York, 1851.)
In Hindostan, to this day, we have the Chaudravanasas and the Snaryavanasas, worshippers of the moon, the aqueous or female; and of the sun, the igneous or male principle. The Saivas conjoin the two. Clemens Alexandrinus has a curious remark, referring to the calling on Evoe or Eva in the orgies of Bacchus; he says:
"The symbol in the orgies of Bacchus is a consecrated serpent; and, indeed, if we pay attention to the strict sense of the Hebrew, the name Evia, aspirated, signifies female serpent."
In my list of saints who are represented with a dragon or serpent beneath their feet, I omitted St. Hilary:
"He is usually represented with three books. In Callot's Images he is treading on serpents, and accompanied by the text Numb. xxi. 7. Both these emblems allude to his opposition to Arianism; the books signifying the treatises he wrote against it, and the serpents the false doctrines and heresies which he overthrew." Calendar of the Anglican Church Illustrated: London, 1851, p. 37.
In Didron's splendid work (the Iconographie) we have several references to ancient representations of our blessed Lord treading the dragon under foot; and sometimes the lion, the asp, and the basilisk are added. (See Ps. xci. 13.)
The Conception is usually represented in Christian art by a figure of Mary setting her foot, as second Eve, on the head of the prostrate serpent (in allusion to Gen. iii. 15.), and thus we find it in Callot's Images.
"Not seldom, in a series of subjects from the Old Testament, the pendant to Eve holding the apple is Mary crushing the head of the fiend: and thus the bane and antidote are both before us." (See Mrs. Jameson's Legends of the Madonna.)
Eirionnach.
Footnote 5:[(return)]
The title of this curious book is, Geschichte der Mission der evangelischen Brüder unter den Indianern in Nordamerika, durch Georg H. Loskiel: Barby, 1789, 8vo., pp. 783. Latrobe's translation of this book was published Lond. 1794.
This reminds one of the notion respecting
"The scorpion girt with fire,"
immortalised by Lord Byron's famous simile.
Eighteen Books of the Secrets of Art and Nature; being the Summe and Substance of Naturall Philosophy methodically digested: London, 1661.
In O'Brien's work on The Round Towers of Ireland, London, 1834, may be found much curious matter on this subject; and a good deal of light is thrown on the horrors of Serpent or Boodhist worship. It is, however, a wild and irreverent book, and by no means to be recommended to the general reader, independently of the nature of its details. Mr. Payne Knight's book is too well known to need mention here.