Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/489

 9' s. x. DEO. 20, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

481

LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER SO, 1902.

CONTENTS. No. 260.

NOTES : Legend of the Serpent's Feet, 4S1 Beaconsfield's Birthplace, 482" Witch," a Lamp Upavon Priory, 483 Catacombs of Petchersk, 484- Author of 'Mystifications' De Vere " Grovelling"" Our God, our help in ages past," 485 Epitaph Stool-ball Curfew Bell at Bucking- ham W. Barnes Epigram on the 'Saturday Review' " Brainy " Forster's Errors in History, 486.

QUERIES : Seal and Owner Lynch of Ipswich -Ell Family Prodigal Son as Sir Charles Grandiron Citizen's Duties

Epigram by Beaconsfield Canterbury Cross, 487 18th Hussars, 1821 Barnwell Priory " Metropolitan Canterbury License and Authority" Vanity Fair Shake- speare Cottage at St Albans Latin Quotation Simile by Coleridge, 488 Elizabethan Poem : Author Wanted Architectural " Follies" Whig Token Johnson and Master Atlas Wanted Eliza Cook : Reference, 489.

REPLIES :-Coleridge's ' Christabel,' 4*9 " Busillis," 490 St. Katherine's Hospital' Golden Stairs' Groat : Bits Dr. Clarke Sir Nicholas Smith, 491 Lady Whitmore National Anthem Roubiliac's Bust of Pope Cureton Monument, 492 Jubilee of George III. Earthworks at Burpham Buss Queries " Tarriers "Pin Pictures Circumflex Accent, 493- Pronunciation of "ng" Refer- ences Wanted Mommsen and Brutus Lightowler, 494 " Popple" The Cope Reference Wanted Shakespeare's Seventy-sixth Sonnet, 495 Lord's Prayer; Dream-lore

"Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform " Heuskarian Rarity, 496 " Le bon temps" Heriot Shakespeare v. Bacon Bodley Pedigree, 497 Hawtrey's 'Nugsc,' 498.

NOTES ON BOOKS : -Bond's ' Lyly ' Foxcrofb's 'Supple- ment to Burnet's History ' Dawson's 'Christmas' 4 Whitaker's Peerage ' ' Whitaker's Almanack ' Clegg's 'International Directory of Booksellers.'

Notices to Correspondents.

LEGEND OF THE SERPENT'S FEET. IN the story of the fall of man the punish- ment of the serpent almost certainly implies that before the temptation of Eve it was not a creeping thing, but an animal with feet and the ordinary power of locomotion :

"And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou from among all cattle, and from among every beast of the field ; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life : and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed : it shall lie in wait for thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for his heel." Gen. iii. 14, 15.

From these verses there was evolved, by a simple process of amplification, a legend of the excision of the feet of the serpent. In the present text of the 'Book of Jubilees' there is no reference to this part of the punishment of the serpent, but Dr. R. H. Charles has marked a lacuna, because there is the testimony of Glycas that the ' Book of Jubilees' then (that is in the twelfth century) contained a statement. that the serpent was originally a four-footed beast.*

the editor's Ethiopia text by R. H. Charles, D.D. (London, A. <k C. Black, 1902), p. 26. This is
 * See ' The Book of Jubilees,' translated from

Dr. Charles mentions that the Targum of the pseudo- Jonathan adds " and thy feet will be cut off" to Gen. iii. 14, and that " according to the Midrash Koheleth the ministering angels came down and cut off its hands and feet." Josephus* tells us that God

"deprived the serpent of speech out of indignation at his malicious disposition towards Adam. Be-. sides this he inserted poison under his tongue, and made him an enemy to men ; and suggested to them that they should direct their strokes against his head, that being the place wherein lay his mis- chievous disposition towards men, and it being easiest to take vengeance on him that way. And when he had deprived him of the use of his feet he made him to go rolling all along, and dragging him- self upon the ground."

The Targum of Jerusalem agrees with the* narrative of Josephus, but adds a bit of Messianic exegesis.

The Mohammedan Gospel of Barnabas asserts that by the Divine commandment the legs of the serpent were cut off by the angel Michael with the sw^rd of God, and that the devil for his share, was condemned to eat the excrements of our first parents and of all their posterity. Sale remarks that he has not met with these two circumstances else- where.t

In the great chronicle of Tabari, that wonderful storehouse, dating from the ninth century, of Mohammedan history, tradition, and myth, the legend of the serpent appears in a developed form.

When Adam was created the angels were told to adore him, which Tabari, as a loyal disciple of the Prophet, explains meant only to give him honour, not worship. But Eblis refused. Adam, he said, was made of earth, Eblis of fire ; therefore Eblis was the superior. For this God cast Eblis out of heaven. Seeking for revenge, Eblis tried to gain admission to Paradise, but from fear of Ridhwah, the guardian angel, he did not make an open attempt, but persuaded the serpent to swallow him, and then to vomit turn forth. Then came the temptation and the fall of Eve and Adam. After our first parents had eaten of the fatal fruit, the skin which had covered them fell off and they became aware of their nudity. This skin was similar to that which still covers the ends of the fingers and toes. Thus when Adam and Eve looked upon their finger-nails the sight

another of Dr. Charles's many excellent contribu- tions to our knowledge of apocryphal literature.


 * Ant.,' i. 1,4.

f See Sale's note to chap. vii. of the Koran. For an account of the Islamic Gospel of Barnabas see my article in the Journal of Theological Studies, vol. iii. p. 441 (April, 1902).