THE SERPENT’S STRANGENESS 167 
if in a deep perpetual sleep, yet eternally awake, 
with open brilliant eyes fixed on whosoever re- 
gards it. A sense of mystery becomes insepar- 
ably associated with its appearance; and when 
habitually regarded with such a feeling, other 
qualities and faculties possessed by it would seem 
in harmony with this strangeness, and outside of 
the common order of nature:—its periodical re- 
newal of youth; the power of existing without 
ailment and with no sensible diminution of vigour 
for an indefinite time; the faculty of fascination 
—a miraculous power over the ordinary lower 
animals; and the deadliness which its venom and 
the lightning-like swiftness of its stroke give it, 
and which is never exercised against man except 
in revenge for an insult or injury. To this in- 
offensiveness of the lethal serpent, together with 
its habit of attaching itself to human habitations, 
about which it glides in a ghostly manner, may be 
traced the notion of its friendliness and guardian- 
ship and of its supernatural power and wisdom; 
the belief that it was a reincarnation of a dead 
man’s soul, a messenger from the gods, and, finally, 
the Agathodaemon of so many lands and so many 
races of men. 
The serpent’s strangeness and serpent-worship 
are thus seen as cause and effect. Now, there is 
another effect, or another subject, so mixed up 
with the one I have been considering that this 
paper might appear incomplete without some notice 
of it—I refer to the widely prevalent belief in the 
