Posted by:
jtibbett
at Sun Oct 8 18:43:00 2006 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by jtibbett ]
First, this has more to do with the venomous forums, but this is the board I read most, and the one I'm most interested in, so I thought I'd post this here for you guys/girls.
What follows is an excerpt from Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native, which takes place in a fictional part of Wessex called Egdon Heath. A woman has been bitten by an adder, one of two snakes in England, and the only venomous. This passage deals with folk beliefs surrounding adders. Hardy was famous for including authentic folklore/traditions/beliefs from the west of England in his novels, so it's likely that people really did believe that adder stings could be cured by rubbing them with the fat of other adders, and that snakes do not die until sundown. While Hardy, I'm sure, did not believe either of those things to be true, earlier in the novel he (or more properly his narrator) mentions that at a certain time of year the snakes at Egdon Heath are shinier because it is the season where they shed their skin. So, while Hardy grew up in rural Wessex, and probably ran into his share of adders and grass snakes, this book shows how little was known about them at the time.
Insofar as the cure itself, it reminds me of an explanation I once read about folk medicine -- folk cures (like frying adders to distill their fat) often take so long to execute, that by the time they're implemented, the worst of the illness has passed. Adder bites rarely cause anything other than pain and swelling, and though the woman, Mrs. Yeobright, dies, it is because she was elderly, and because she had just walkled 12 miles on one of the hottest days of the year.
Anyway, here's the passage:
Sam and the brandy soon arrived, and it was administered by the light of the lantern; after which she became sufficiently conscious to signify by signs that something was wrong with her foot. Olly Dowden at length understood her meaning, and examined the foot indicated. It was swollen and red. Even as they watched the red began to assume a more livid colour, in the midst of which appeared a scarlet speck, smaller than a pea, and it was found to consist of a drop of blood, which rose above the smooth flesh of her ankle in a hemisphere.
"I know what it is," cried Sam. "She has been stung by an adder!"
"Yes," said Clym instantly. "I remember when I was a child seeing just such a bite. O, my poor mother!"
"It was my father who was bit," said Sam. "And there's only one way to cure it. You must rub the place with the fat of other adders, and the only way to get that is by frying them. That's what they did for him."
"'Tis an old remedy," said Clym distrustfully, "and I have doubts about it. But we can do nothing else till the doctor comes."
"'Tis a sure cure," said Olly Dowden, with emphasis. "I've used it when I used to go out nursing."
"Then we must pray for daylight, to catch them," said Clym gloomily.
"I will see what I can do," said Sam.
He took a green hazel which he had used as a walking stick, split it at the end, inserted a small pebble, and with the lantern in his hand went out into the heath. Clym had by this time lit a small fire, and despatched Susan Nunsuch for a frying pan. Before she had returned Sam came in with three adders, one briskly coiling and uncoiling in the cleft of the stick, and the other two hanging dead across it.
"I have only been able to get one alive and fresh as he ought to be," said Sam. "These limp ones are two I killed today at work; but as they don't die till the sun goes down they can't be very stale meat."
The live adder regarded the assembled group with a sinister look in its small black eye, and the beautiful brown and jet pattern on its back seemed to intensify with indignation. Mrs. Yeobright saw the creature, and the creature saw her--she quivered throughout, and averted her eyes.
"Look at that," murmured Christian Cantle. "Neighbours, how do we know but that something of the old serpent in God's garden, that gied the apple to the young woman with no clothes, lives on in adders and snakes still? Look at his eye--for all the world like a villainous sort of black currant. 'Tis to be hoped he can't ill-wish us! There's folks in heath who've been overlooked already. I will never kill another adder as long as I live."
.........................................................................................................
Susan now arrived with the frying pan, when the live adder was killed and the heads of the three taken off. The remainders, being cut into lengths and split open, were tossed into the pan, which began hissing and crackling over the fire. Soon a rill of clear oil trickled from the carcasses, whereupon Clym dipped the corner of his handkerchief into the liquid and anointed the wound.
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2.0 Pantherophis obsoletus obsoletus
0.2 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus
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 OT: Snakes in Literature (long post) - jtibbett, Sun Oct 8 18:43:00 2006 
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