Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/68

54 (1779) says, of Keynsham, "formerly the credulous inhabitants of this Village believed these Snake-stones to have been real serpents, changed into stone by one Keina, a devout British virgin." Alban Butler's version of this belief is as follows:—

I may remark here that this version of the legend is more important than the Whitby one, for Butler gives as his authority for the turning of serpents into stone Camden's Britannia, which takes us back at once to the Elizabethan period. The passage in Camden's Britannia, when translated, runs as follows:—

This quotation shows that the belief was a matter of general report as far back as the year 1586, but a different passage from Camden bearing upon the same subject is quoted by Plot in The Natural History of Oxfordshire. This second passage adds the important information that Camden believed himself to have seen another kind of snakestone, the head of which projected at its circumference, while its tail was rolled up in the