Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/333

 Rh with that divination of wider uniformities wherewith the Scientific Imagination is wont to cheer the labours of the humdrum researcher.

Medical Superstition:—Snakes.

(Vol. xi., p. 120.)

The snake's horn is known also in Cos, and is used for both the purposes specified in the Larnaca case, which shows that the plaintiffs statement that he used it experimentally was false. The second appears to be its chief virtue, and the directions for obtaining the horn, given me by an old woman who once had one, leave no doubt. You must find two snakes coupling and throw something over them. Then one of the snakes will give up the horn. W. R. Paton.

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The following items are cut from the Daily Telegraph:—

"The Merthyr Tydvil School Board recently closed the infant schools, owing to an epidemic of measles at Clwydyfagwr School. The mistress. Miss J. Starr, has been annoyed by the clamour of illiterate or superstitious parents who attribute the measles to the alleged malign influence of a snake recently killed on the mountain, and preserved in spirits of wine at the school for use in object lessons. So great has been the outcry that many people have offered their condolences to Miss Starr, who, happily, treats the absurd complaints as a joke."—(22 March, 1900.)

"At Eye Kettleby, in Leicestershire, during the course of some digging operations in a local garden, and at a depth of 2 feet in the subsoil, an English ringed snake, but a pure albino, with eyes of a bright ruby red, was unearthed. According to the leading authorities albinism .... has hitherto been entirely unknown in connection with reptiles. The recently captured specimen has come very appropriately into the possession of Mr. Castang, the well-known authority on albinos and hybrids."—(6 March, 1900.)

It seems then that the white snake which so often occurs in European folktale is not an entirely imaginary creature.