CURIOUS CREATURES. 285 



forth againe, but found not a Serpent alive, for there 

 were slaine above eyght thousand : all which, he caused 

 presently to be covered with earth in ditches, and 

 afterwards declared the whole matter to Baiazeta by 

 letters, after he had gotten that Cittie, whereat the great 

 Turke rejoyced, for hee thereby interpreted happinesse 

 to himselfe." 



Luckily, man has found out things inimical to Serpents, 

 and they, and their use, seem to be very simple : 



" There is such vertue in the Ashe tree, that no Ser- 

 pent will endure to come neere either the morning or 

 evening shadow of it ; yea, though very farre distant 

 from them, they do so deadlie hate it. We set downe 

 nothing but that wee have found true by experience : 

 If a great fire be made, and the same fire encircled 

 round with Ashen-boughes, and a serpent put betwixt 

 the fire and the Ashen-boughes, the Serpent will sooner 

 runne into the fire, than come neere the Ashen-boughes : 

 thus saith Pliny. Olaus Magnus saith, that those Nor- 

 thern Countries which have great store of Ash-trees, 

 doe want venemous beasts, of which opinion is also 

 Pliny. Callimachus saith, there is a Tree growing in 

 the Land of Trackinia, called Smt'lo, to which, if any 

 Serpents doe either come neere, or touch, they foorth- 

 with die. Democritus is of opinion, that any Serpent 

 will die if you cast Oken-leaves upon him. Pliny is of 

 opinion that Alcibiadum, which is a kind of wild Buglosse, 

 is of the same use and qualitie ; and further, being 

 chewed, if it be spet upon any serpent, that it cannot 

 possibly live. In time of those solemne Feastes which 

 the Athenians dedicated to the Goddesse Ceres, their 

 women did use to lay and strew their beddes, with the 

 leaves of the Plant called Agnos, because serpents could 



