This egg, it seems was
tossed into the air, by the hissings of its dam, and before it fell
again to the earth (where it would be defiled) it was to be received in
the sagus or sacred vestment. The person who caught the egg was to make
his escape on horseback, since the serpent pursues the ravisher of its
young, even to the brink of the next river. Pliny, from whom this
account is taken (lib. 29. C. 3.) proceeds with an enumeration of other
absurdities relating to the anguinum. This _anguinum_ is in British
called _Glain-neider_, or the serpent of glass; and the same
superstitious reverence which the Danmonii universally paid to the
anguinum, is still discoverable in some parts of Cornwall. Mr. Llhuyd
informs us that "the Cornish retain a variety of charms, and have still
towards the Land's-End, the amulets of Maen-Magal and Glain-neider,
which latter they call _Melprer_, and have a charm for the snake to make
it, when they find one asleep, and stick a hazel wand in the centre of
her spirae," or coils.
We are informed by Cambden that, "in most parts of Wales, and
throughout all Scotland and Cornwall, it is an opinion of the vulgar,
that about midsummer-eve (though in the time they do not all agree) the
snakes meet in companies, and that by joining heads together and
hissing, a kind of bubble is formed, which the rest, by continual
hissing, blow on till it passes quite through the body, when it
immediately hardens, and resembles a glass-ring, which whoever finds
shall prosper in all his undertakings.
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