294 CURIOUS CREATURES. 



against his scaly sides, and could not hurt him, for 

 his hard body made nothing of the weapons cast with 

 violence against him. But this Serpent twisting his 

 tail in many twines, by turning his tail round, he would 

 pull up trees by the roots, and by his crawling on the 

 ground, he had made a great hollow place, that in some 

 places, hills seemed to be parted as if a valley were 

 between them, wherefore Fridkvus considering that the 

 upper parts of this beast could not be penetrated, he 

 runs him in with his sword underneath ; and, piercing 

 into his groine, he drew forth his virulent matter, as he 

 lay panting : when he had killed the Serpent, he dug 

 up the money, and carried it away." 



He gives another story of a combat with " Wormcs," 

 although in the Latin they are called Vipers : yet I leave 

 my readers to judge whether the small snake, the viper, 

 would require such an amount of killing as Regner had 

 to bestow upon them : 



" Of Regnerus, called Hair-Coat. There was a King 

 of the Sueons called Herothus, whose troubled mind 

 was not a little urged how to preserve his Daughter's 

 chastity ; whether he should guard her with wild beasts 

 (as the manner of most Princes was then) or else should 

 commit the custody of her to man's fidelity. But he, 

 preferring cruelty of Beasts to man's fidelity, he soonest 

 chose what would do most hurt. For, hunting in the 

 woods, he brought some Snakes that his Company had 

 found, for his Daughter to feed up. She, quickly obeying 

 her Father's commands, bred up a generation of vipers 

 by her Virgin hands. And that they might want no 

 meat, her curious Father caused the whole body of an 

 Ox to be brought, being ignorant that, by this private 

 food, he maintain'd a publick destruction. These, being 



