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phenomenon of import as prophesying the fate of whole countries and 
nations, hut even individuals "believed themselves ahle to gather their 
future destiny from it. Men and women in Thuringia, like the inhahitants 
of Sweden and Norway, threw their garments, jackets or aprons in the 
path of the Host-Snake, that it might crawl over them, and considered 
this, if it happened, as a good omen. 
In later times the Host- Worm has often been noticed — almost 
exclusively in pine and fir forests — in the north-west of the Karpathians, 
and by the "Gorales" of the Tatra mountains it is looked upon as the 
harbinger of a good harvest. The country people collect and dry it, have 
it consecrated in their churches and then strew it about in barns, stables, 
rooms, on fields, etc., in the belief that bread and luck will follow. An 
abundant harvest is prophesied for Poland when the Host-Worm passes 
northwards down the mountains ; for Hungary when it glides southwards 
and upwards towards the Hungarian frontiers. This belief is traced back 
to the following tale or legend : a woman during a time of dearth went to 
Hungary to buy bread ; returning without success she found in the Tatra a 
passing Host-Worm and took it on with her in a shawl ; arrived at home, 
she threw her purse to her hungry, starving children comforting them with 
the assurance that good and fruitful years were coming because the Host- 
Worm was on its way to Poland. Hence from generation to generation, 
in the eyes of the people the Host-Worm is a prophet and no one destroys 
it for all know that it does no harm. In the Babia-Gora, a branch of the 
Karpathians, when a shepherd finds a Host-Worm he puts it into a new 
pot and places it amongst his sheep to make them flourish. 
The Host- Worm having again shown itself in the splendid beech-forests 
high in the mountains not far from Stolberg on the Hartz, has enabled the 
" Forst-meister " Bering at Seesen on the Hartz, to publish an exhaustive 
article on its history, and to have this article illustrated by drawings. 
What then is this Host or Snake-Worm ? It is not one animal but many, 
composed often of millions of little grubs which in a manner perhaps 
unique glide serpent-like through the forests. The first printed notice of 
it was given in the year 1603 by Casper Schwenkfelt of Liegnitz, in his, 
now very rare, "Zoological Garden of Silesia." Schwenkfelt named the grub 
or larva forming the Host- Worm, Ascarides militaris, as it somewhat 
resembled the well-known small white Ascarides, and considered it a true 
worm, " in summer they crawl, hanging together like chains, forming as 
it were an army." At the beginning of the eighteenth century Magister 
Christian Junker, Rector of the School at Schlusingen in the Hartz, in a 
