Chap. 12.] 
SEEPENTS' EGGS. 
389 
in high renown by the people of the Gallic provinces, but 
totally omitted by the Greek writers. In summer time, num- 
berless snakes become artificially entwined together, and form 
rings around their bodies with the viscous slime which exudes 
from their mouths, and with the foam secreted hj them : the 
name given to this substance is " anguinum."®^ The Druids 
tell us, that the serpents eject these eggs into the air by their 
hissing,^* and that a person must be ready to catch them in a 
cloak, so as not to let them touch the ground; they say also that he 
must instantly take to flight on horseback, as the serpents will 
be sure to pursue him, until some intervening river has placed 
a barrier between them. The test of its genuineness, they say, 
is its floating against the current of a stream, even though it 
be set in gold. Eut, as it is the way with magicians to be 
dexterous and cunning in casting a veil about their frauds, they 
pretend that these eggs can only be taken on a certain day of 
the moon ; as though, forsooth, it depended entirely upon the 
human will to make the moon and the serpents accord as to 
the moment of this operation, 
I myself, however, have seen one of these eggs: it was 
round, and about as large as an apple of moderate size ; the 
shell of it was formed of a cartilaginous substance, and it was 
surrounded with numerous cupules, as it were, resembling 
those upon the arms of the polypus : it is held in high estimation 
the name of Glain naidry or " the Adder gem." Mr. Luyd (in Rowland's 
Mona Antiqua, p. 342) says that the genuine Ovum anguinum can be no 
other than a shell of the kind called echinus marinus, and that Dr. Borlase 
observes that, instead of the natural anguinum, artificial rings of stone, 
glass, and sometimes baked clay, were substituted as of equal validity. 
The belief in these charms very recently existed in Cornwall and Wales, if 
indeed it does not at the present day. The subject is very fully discussed in 
Brand's Popular Antiquities, Vol. III. p. 286, et seq., and p. 369, et seq.^ 
Bohn's Edition. These gems and beads are not uncommonly found in tumuli 
of the early British period. 
A similar belief in its origin was prevalent in Cornwall and Wales, 
and whoever found it was supposed to ensure success in all his undertakings. 
^3 *' The snake's egg" — ovum being understood. 
84 a The vulgar opinion in Cornwall and most parts of Wales is that these 
are produced through all Cornwall by snakes joining their heads together 
and hissing, which forms a kind of bubble like a ring about the head of 
one of them, which the rest, by continual hissing, blow on till it comes off 
at the tail, when it immediately hardens and resembles a glass ring." — 
GougKs Camden,Yo\. II. p. 571, Ed. 1789. 
The shell of a sea urchin most probably. See Kote 81 above. 
