282 . SHAKESPEARE’S [ SERPENT. 
if a Serpent be crept into a man’s womb, he may be drawn 
out with odour and smell of milk. 
Bartholomew (Berthelet), bk. xviii. § 8. 
Ir a water-snake be tied by the tail with a cord, 
and hanged up, and a vessel full of water set under the 
said snake,—after a certain time he will avoid out of his 
mouth a stone, which stone being taken out of the vessel, 
he drinks up all the water. Let this stone be tied to the 
belly of them that have the dropsy, and the water will be 
exhausted or drunk up, and it fully and wholly helps the 
party that hath the said dropsy. 
Lupton, “ Notable Things,” bk. i. § 11. 
Ir any do sprinkle his head with the powder of the skin 
that a snake doth cast off, gotten or gathered when the 
moon is in the full, being also in the first part of Aries, the 
Ram, he shall see terrible and fearful dreams. And if he 
shall have it under the plant of his foot, he shall be accept- 
able before magistrates and princes. Ibid, bk. iv. § 54. 
A CERTAIN country-man did sleep open-mouthed in the 
fields, a Serpent crept in at his mouth, and so into his 
body ; but after the same man cured himself thereof with 
eating of garlic. But he infected his wife with poison, 
whereof she died, which was very rare and strange. 
Ibid., bk. v. § 95. 
A Serpent doth so hate the Ash-tree, that she will not 
come nigh the shadow of them, and therefore she goes far 
from them both morning and evening, because then they 
give the longest shadows, etc. ; Ibid., bk. ix. § 8. 
V. Ash-tree. 
SERPENTS being within a circle made of Betony, they 
cannot go out of the same, but rather will die with beating 
themselves. Ibid., bk, ix. § 28. 
In Egypt as frogs and mice are engendered by showers 
of rain, so also are Serpents; and the longest hairs of 
women are easily turned into Serpents; and dung, being 
