A GARDEN DIARY 187 



King of Ossory, a man of sense amongst his 

 people, beat upon his head, and spake thus : 

 ' That reptile is the bearer of doleful news to 

 Ireland.' ' Giraldus is careful, however, to 

 assure us that "no man will venture to suppose 

 that this reptile was ever born in Ireland, for 

 the mud there does not, as in other countries, 

 contain the germs from which frogs are bred " ; 

 indeed, in another part of the Topographia 

 Hibernica we learn that frogs, toads, and snakes, 

 if accidentally brought to Ireland, on being cast 

 ashore, immediately " turning on their backs, do 

 burst and die." This statement is corroborated 

 by a still more illustrious authority, that of 

 the Venerable Bede, whom Giraldus quotes as 

 follows : " No reptile is found there" (in Ireland), 

 " neither can any serpent live in it, for, though 

 oft carried there out of Britain, so soon as the 

 ship draws near the land, and the scent of the 

 air from off the shore reaches them, immediately 

 they die." So efficacious was the very dust 

 of Ireland that on "gardens or other places in 

 foreign lands being sprinkled with it, immediately 

 all venomous reptiles are driven away." So, too, 

 with fragments of the skins and bones of animals 

 born and bred in Ireland ; indeed, parings from 

 Irish manuscripts, and scraps of the leather with 

 which Irish books were bound, were amongst 

 the accredited cures for snakebite until well on 

 in the Middle Ages. Of his own personal 



