Snakes

[Dr Chris James]

    You spotted snakes with double tongue,

 Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen.

 Newts and blindworms, do no wrong.

 Come not near our fairy queen. [Shakespeare: A Midsumer Night’s Dream].

 

I have a fascination with snakes!  They are so intriguingly primal.   They seem to like me too because they happily occupy the wetlands on my property and we have rather got used to each other’s company.  Freudian thoughts aside, I first became fascinated with all kinds of reptiles when my cousin was at university and she started carrying slithery creatures around in small cages.  She brought a miniature carpet snake to my grandmother’s house one day thinking the old women would be afraid of it and start screaming.  My grandmother who was busy stirring a pot of soup on the stove picked up the snake by its tail and threatened to put it in the cooking pot.   The snake was reprieved when my cousin started screaming.  As for me, I had an early lesson in how to deal with mischief.

   Hydra [from the Goddess Hera] in Greek mythology was a gigantic, nine-headed water serpent that hid in the wetlands of Lerna.   The great god Heracles, a paragon of masculinity, attempted to destroy her, but each time he cut off one of her nine heads another replaced it. I can safely say that the tale of Hydra is a mythological gem that speaks to the character of all people who have discovered the key to happiness and survival.  Live like the proverb suggests; as one door closes another one opens.

 

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

Oh...snakes! Well, I heard from Vizma that they do crawl in and around down under in Oz!

Yes, there was Hydra....and Medusa, too :-) Nasty Greek women?