42 VIPER SERPENT. Class HI, 



When in undulating twine, 

 The foaming snakes prolific join ; 

 When they hiss, and when they bear 

 Their wondrous egg aloof in air ; 

 Thence before to earth it fall, 

 The Druid in his hallow'd pall 

 Receives the prize, 

 And instant flies, 



Follow' d by the envenom' d brood, 

 'Till he cross the crystal flood.* 



This wondrous egg seems to be nothing more 

 than a bead of glass, used by the Druids as a 

 charm to impose on the vulgar, whom they 

 taught to believe, that the possessor would be 

 fortunate in all his attempts, and that it would 

 gain him the favor of the great. 



Our modern Druidesses give much the same 

 account of the ovum anguinum, Glain Neidr, as 

 the Welsh call it, or the Adder-Gem, as the Ro- 

 man philosopher does, but seem not to have so 

 exalted an opinion of its powers, using it only 

 to assist children in cutting their teeth, or to cure 

 the chin-cough, or to drive away an ague. 



We have some of these beads in our cabinet : 

 they are made of glass, and of a very rich blue 

 color ; some are plain, others streaked : we say 

 nothing of the figure, as the annexed plate will 

 convey a stronger idea of it than words. 



* Mason's Caructacus. The person speaking is a Druid. 



