FORBIDDEN HERPETOLOGY - The Myth of the Suckling Serpent
Many cultures share stories of a snake who steals milk, latches onto mothers and animals, and yet biologically snakes and reptiles cannot suckle or process lactose. So what is going on?
Many cultures share stories of a snake who steals milk, latches onto mothers and animals, and yet biologically snakes and reptiles cannot suckle or process lactose. So what is going on?
In 1664, the experimental biologist Francesco Redi published 'Observations on Vipers Wrote in a Letter to Count Lorenzo Magalotti'. In this he refuted the idea that snakes sought out and drank wine. Why would he do this?
The folklore that snakes were attracted to wine runs deep, with many ancient references. But this is merely a subset of the liquid-stealing serpent motif, one that includes blood, wine and milk.
In fact, the myth is extremely widespread, with examples in Mayan, Sub Saharan African, Indian and European stories.
Despite snakes lacking a diaphragm and possessing mouths incapable of latching and suckling, even experts have left some wiggle room, often saying a snake *might* drink milk if thirsty enough.
Folklore motif ATU 285 concerns tales where milk is presented to a snake in return for knowledge, friendship or fortune. Sometimes a woman breaks the deal with disastrous results, the snake is killed or betrayed. The moral often being that broken friendship cannot be repaired.
Similar stories exist in different times and places, including in Sanskrit, Latin and Jewish tales.
A variation on this motif is the 'Snake in the Cradle': "a child is sleeping in his crib under a tree or in the grass field, or more rarely in his house, a snake enters the cradle and penetrates into its mouth, the child has no particular ailments but its belly begins to swell"
The snake is attracted to the maternal milk in the body of the child. In Olaus Magnus' famous book describing 'northern peoples', he included a chapter called βOn guarding tiny children from serpents during the harvestβ
The snake 'defrauds' both the mother and infant, stealing the child's milk. Sometimes latching to the breast with its tail in the child's mouth, taking the nutrients and starving the child.
These tales possibly reflect a number of anxieties - a child failing to thrive, the insatiable appetite of an infant manifest as a greedy snake, a reflection of male fear that - as the snake deprives the child, women deprive men of their vitality.
Various myths contain these elements, of snakes, children and breastfeeding. Famously Clytemnestra dreams of giving birth to a snake - a double of her son Orestes, born from the same womb. She lays this snake in swaddling clothes, and offers him milk and blood from her breasts.
A similar motif is found in Indo-European derived stories - the Golden Breast - where a blood sucking snake, attached to a man, is drawn away by a woman tempting the snake with her breasts. Once latched, the woman cuts off her nipple or breast and kills the snake.
Indo-European cultures are also full of stories of snakes that suckle and injure cows and other milk bearing animals.
"One can find traces of several similar beliefs, of demon snakes or animal-like sorcerers that assault and suckle the breasts of women or the udders of cattle, in Vedic and medieval PurΔαΉic texts. Cattle are safeguarded through hymns to Agni, the Vedic ire and sky god"
A common element to this fear, widespread from the Arabic world to the New World immigrant farmers, is of a snake wrapping itself around the legs of a cow, breaking them and draining it of milk. Sometimes the snake is said to be a witch or demon.
A strange variant comes from Giovanni
Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459), who recounted a rumoured story of a cow who gave birth to a monstrous and deformed snake. The snake tangled and broke the cow's legs, drank its milks and disappeared into the wilderness.
Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459), who recounted a rumoured story of a cow who gave birth to a monstrous and deformed snake. The snake tangled and broke the cow's legs, drank its milks and disappeared into the wilderness.
The main question then is why these stories exist at all? We have a few key ideas here:
- snakes are an ancient primate enemy
- snakes pose a risk to children and animals
- snakes are a classic mythological animal, both phallic and chthonic
- snakes are an ancient primate enemy
- snakes pose a risk to children and animals
- snakes are a classic mythological animal, both phallic and chthonic
They are connected to female nature in many cultures, seen as possessing divine wisdom and danger, but also friendship and fortune.
A combination of these practical and spiritual/sexual fears may be at the root of the Suckling Serpent myth, but there's unlikely to be one grand narrative to explain everything.
I leave you with a newspaper story of a woman breastfeeding a giant snake in Nenohwe Village in Zimbabwe. Apparently she was whispering the names of her enemies to the serpent as she nursed it. This myth seems eternal and archetypal...
Loading suggestions...