What do you think?
Rate this book
Serpent's Tale: Snakes in Folklore and Literature
“We travel the world,” writes Gregory McNamee, “and wherever we go there are snake stories to entertain us.” Here are some fifty diverse and unusual accounts of serpents from cultures across time and around the globe: snakes that talk, jump, and dance; snakes that transform into other creatures; snakes that just . . . watch.Many selections are drawn from the rich oral traditions of peoples in every clime that supports reptiles, from the Akimel O’odham of North America to the Mensa Bet-Abrahe of Africa to the Mungkjan of Australia. Included as well are such writings as prayers from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm, a poem by Emily Dickinson, and a journal entry by Charles Darwin.
What we read about snakes in The Serpent’s Tale is just as fascinating for what it says about us, for there always will be something primordial about our connection to them. That bond is evident in these stories: in how we associate snakes with nature’s elemental forces, how we attribute special qualities to their eyes and skin, and how they preside over all phases of our existence, from creation to death to resurrection.
What we read about snakes in The Serpent’s Tale is just as fascinating for what it says about us, for there always will be something primordial about our connection to them. That bond is evident in these stories: in how we associate snakes with nature’s elemental forces, how we attribute special qualities to their eyes and skin, and how they preside over all phases of our existence, from creation to death to resurrection.
168 pages, Paperback
First published September 15, 2000
About the author
Gregory McNamee
60 books8 followersGregory McNamee is a writer, journalist, editor, photographer, and publisher. He is the author or title-page editor of thirty-five books and more than four thousand periodical publications, including articles, essays, reviews, interviews, editorials, poems, and short stories.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 17, 2026
To be honest, I was disappointed to find that The Serpent’s Tale by Gregory McNamee is not a nonfiction examination of snakes in literature, but rather an anthological collection of folktales, myths, and naturalists’ notes about snakes. McNamee has assembled an impressive selection of tales from various time periods, cultures, and genres, but I felt that he lacked an intriguing central focus or insightful literary commentary to keep things scholarly. It’s a bit of a hodgepodge with a couple of memorable tales, but snake-lovers will find a thing or two to chew on.
Snakes have been integral to humanity’s culture, legends, and literature since the beginning of time; as early as the Bible and The Epic of Gilgamesh, serpents of all types have popped up in mythology, superstition, and folklore. Just think of all the famous stories involving snakes — the deceptive serpent in the Garden of Eden, the giant Python of Delphi slain by Apollo, the hypnotic Kaa in The Jungle Book, even the snaky monsters of Harry Potter and Anaconda — and their clear role as representatives of whatever opposes the current cultural values. The interaction between snakes and humans has been an object of fascination by authors worldwide. Humans seem to be born with an innate fear of snakes and the potential danger they pose, and that fear has made appearances in the songs, literature, and mythologies of almost every culture around the world. We’re just as intrigued by snakes as we are frightened of them, often linking serpents to key concepts like death, seduction, and rebirth.
Many of the stories in The Serpent’s Tale go back to primordial creation stories and etiological myths, telling how snakes once lived in harmony with humans and other creatures until something bad happened; others give reasons for why snakes are hated and feared, or how they became what they are now. Every culture’s folktales attribute certain traits to their local wildlife, and snakes seem to be universally portrayed as sly, manipulative, destructive deceivers. It’s truly fascinating how varied and yet how consistent snake folklore is across thousands of years and hundreds of cultures, as if snakes have managed to slither themselves into our literature and make a name that is purely their own. The lines between serpents, dragons, dinosaurs, sea serpents, and local cryptids are often blurred, linking snakes with every biome from rivers and forests to deserts and mountains. Even when snakes are not the focus of a culture’s legends and myths, it’s hard to find a culture that does not at least mention the serpentine creatures that provoke such fantastical folklore.
In literature, snakes are often the bringers of death, creatures that should be feared and revered and avoided at all costs; sometimes they’re helpful, sometimes duplicitous, sometimes just a part of the natural surroundings, but they are always positioned as creatures of import. They are magical, mysterious, fearsome, powerful, sacred, demanding, enticing in turns — they bring good luck and bad omens, act as nuisances and companions, and are portrayed as creatures that must be killed and should not be killed. They are executors of divine retribution, they signify fertility, and they wreak destruction. They often appear in strangely sensual roles (no doubt a topic Freud would have appreciated), representing beauty, charm, and seduction; they trap young women and men into irresistible proposals, intermarry with humans, and give birth to homogenized offspring. Some are anthropomorphized or ambiguously human. Some are primordial beings linked with creation and the early establishment of civilization, while others are gods or spirits in disguise. Some stories even blend snakes with the mythology surrounding vampires and shapeshifters, often delving into the oddly popular species of “snake-people” that deceive and multiply. The snakes in The Serpent’s Tale talk, jump, mate, fight, attack, kill, devour, trick, die, resurrect, breathe fire, shapeshift, demand wives, and control the elements, which if nothing else showcases the shocking panoply of traits humans see in themselves.
McNamee apparently put The Serpent’s Tale together as a simple interest project (he’s the type who seems to have dabbled in almost everything), but I didn’t find many stories that were truly interesting or unique; it’s mostly just an average collection of mentions of snakes in all the stories McNamee could find. There is no apparent organization to the tales — categorizing the stories by region, genre, time period, or type of snake would have been more interesting and organized. None of the stories in this book are actually written, adapted, or translated by McNamee himself; all are cited in a very detailed bibliography at the end of the book with their source material. McNamee does include a little two-sentence introduction to each tale, but he provides none of the insightful commentary or critical connections I was hoping for. I also was hoping for more variety in genres, a blend of popular and obscure tales, and some truly intriguing tales centering on snakes, but McNamee doesn’t quite deliver on any of these fronts.
The selections in The Serpent’s Tale include dozens of types of snakes — rattlesnakes, adders, cobras, boas, sidewinders, garter snakes, copperheads, asps, horned vipers, taipans, sand snakes, coachwhips, grass snakes, lanceheads, watersnakes, pythons, and some legendary ones — from people groups on every inhabited continent through the millennia. McNamee includes snippets of works from famous authors like Emily Dickinson, the Grimm Brothers, and Charles Darwin along with a dizzying array of anthropologists, folklorists, naturalists, ethnographers, explorers, novelists, poets, and historians. Though the majority of this book focuses on the folktales, legends, and myths of different cultures, McNamee incorporates some interesting additional genres: tribal songs, scientists’ field notes, ancient proverbs, potion recipes, etiological myths, cautionary tales, medieval bestiaries, and even the occasional excerpt from works of fiction. The Serpent’s Tale unfortunately follows no clear organization and has no central theme other than “snakes,” and though it was intended to focus on the more obscure legends, I couldn’t help thinking it felt a bit incomplete without some key Bible passages and stories like Cleopatra’s suicide, Remy Van Lierde’s giant snake sighting, and the ubiquitous Loch Ness Monster legends.
Even though McNamee doesn’t provide much philosophical commentary or literary criticism, he at least supplied me with the fodder to write my own (in this review, at least). Some of the tales are memorable — “The Black and White Serpents” and “A Curative Snakepit” stood out to me — but overall this collection is kind of directionless, disorganized, and underwhelming. Maybe some illustrations would have helped!
Tales included in this selection are as follows:
• “How Rattlesnake Learned to Bite” — Akimel O’odham and Miwok (Native American) folktales retold by American anthropologist Frank Russell (1906) and American ethnographer C. Hart Merriam (1910)
• “A Pinacate Weresnake” — on Mexican sidewinders, from the essay “Talking with the Animals” (1987) by American archaeologist Julian Hayden
• “The Three Snake Leaves” — Swabian (German) folktale retold by the Brothers Grimm (1812)
• “A Garter Snake” — from the poem “A Narrow Fellow in the Grass” (1865) by American poet Emily Dickinson
• “Coyote and Rattlesnake” — Zia Pueblo (Native American) folktale retold by Scottish folklorist Lewis Spence (1909)
• “Timber Rattler” — on timber rattlesnakes of New York, from the book Letters from an American Farmer (1782) by French-American author J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur
• “Humpy Lumpy Snakes” — Hawaiian poem by Queen Lili’uokalani of Hawai’i (1897)
• “Yosemite Rattlers” — on rattlesnakes of California, from an essay in the book Our National Parks (1901) by American naturalist John Muir
• “The Jumping Snakes of Sarajevo” — Yugoslavian legend retold in a letter by correspondent M.F. Kerchelich (1950)
• “Proverbs and Customs” — Afghani, Dahomean (Beninese), Romanian, Navajo (Native American), and Moroccan folk beliefs
• “The Asp” — on Egyptian adders, from the book The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents (1658) by English naturalist Edward Topsell
• “The Greedy Minister and the Serpent” — Chinese folktale retold by folklorist Tehyi Hsieh (1928)
• “Thor and the Serpent” — Icelandic myth retold by historian Snorri Sturluson (1919)
• “The Well of Heway” — Mensa Bet-Abrahe (Ethiopian) folktale retold by Austrian author Alice Werner (1915)
• “The Canoe Paddlers” — Ngulugwongga (Australian) folktale retold by Australian anthropologist Ursula McConnel (1957)
• “Flood, Flame, and Headache” — Romanian folktales retold by historian Maurice Gaster (1915)
• “Cobra, Go Away!” — ancient Egyptian prayers from The Book of the Dead translated by English Egyptologist E.A. Wallis Budge (1895)
• “The Lucknow Cobra” — on Indian cobras, from the book Naturalist at Large (1943) by American naturalist Thomas Barbour
• “Taipan the Snake and the Blue-Tongued Lizard” — Mungkjan (Australian) folktales retold by Australian anthropologist Ursula McConnel (1957)
• “The White Adder” — Scottish legend retold by folklorist Andrew Jervise (1853)
• “Texas Snakes” — Mexican-American folktales retold by American rancher Edgar Kincaid (1926)
• “Danger Snake” — Gunwinggu (Australian) folktale retold by anthropologist Catherine Berndt (1950)
• “Albanian Snakelore” — on Albanian grass snakes, from the book High Albania (1909) by English anthropologist Edith Durham
• “Snake and Sparrow” — Palestinian folktale retold by Arab-American translator Inea Bushnaq (1986)
• “Why Rattlesnakes Don’t Cross the River” — Thompson (Native Canadian) folktale retold by American ethnographer Frank B. Linderman (1915)
• “In Search of a Dream” — Santali (Indian) folktale retold by Indian scholar A.K. Ramanujan (1991)
• “Rattlesnake Ceremony Song” — Yokuts (Native American) song translated by American anthropologist A.L. Kroeber (1925)
• “The Fight with Bida” — Soninke (Malian) legend retold by German anthropologist Leo Frobenius (1928)
• “Dangerous Hours” — on Greek folk beliefs, from the book The Dangerous Hour (1970) by American psychologists Richard and Eva Blum
• “Notes from a Bestiary” — on vipers and asps, from a medieval Latin bestiary (12th century) translated in The Bestiary: A Book of Beasts (1954) by English author T.H. White
• “An Argentine Viper” — on Argentine lanceheads, from the book The Voyage of the Beagle (1962) by English naturalist Charles Darwin
• “A Florida Coach-Whip” — on coachwhips of Florida, from the book Travels (1791) by American explorer William Bartram
• “Snake Killer” — from the novel Green Mansions (1904) by W.H. Hudson
• “English Vipers” — on European adders, from the book The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789) by English cleric Gilbert White
• “He Saves a Snake” — Tzotzil (Mayan) folktale retold by American anthropologist Robert M. Laughlin (1997)
• “The Two Sisters and the Boa” — Kucong (Chinese) folktale retold by American translator Lucien Miller (1994)
• “The Origins of the Snake Clan” — Tewa (Native American) folktale retold by American folklorist Elsie Clews Parsons (1926)
• “Coyote Learns a Lesson from Snake” — Wichita (Native American) folktale retold by American ethnographer George A. Dorsey (1904)
• “The Racing Snake” — Creek (Native American) folktale retold by American anthropologist John R. Swanton (1929)
• “The Man Who Became a Snake” — Hitchiti (Native American) folktale retold by American anthropologist John R. Swanton (1929)
• “The White and Black Serpents” — Chinese folktale retold by folklorist Lim Sian-tek (1944)
• “Ancient Snakes” — on Indian and Italian snakes, from the encyclopedia Natural History (A.D. 77) by Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder
• “The Lion and the Snake” — Swahili (East African) folktale retold by American folklorist Harold Courlander (1950)
• “The Origin of the People” — Venda (South African) folktale retold by American folklorist Harold Courlander (1950)
• “Snake Healing Formulas” — Tutsi (Central African) magical songs translated by American folklorist Harold Courlander (1950)
• “The Snake Ogre” — Sioux (Native American) myth retold by American ethnographer Frank B. Linderman (1915)
• “Nife the Snake” — Mono-Alu (Solomon Islands) folktale retold by English anthropologist Gerald Camden Wheeler (1926)
• “The Serpent of the Sea” — Zuni (Native American) folktale retold by American anthropologist Frank Hamilton Cushing (1901)
• “The Moon and the Great Snake” — Cree (Native American) folktale retold by Scottish folklorist Lewis Spence (1909)
• “The Serpent King” — Calabrian (Italian) folktale retold by Italian author Italo Calvino (1956)
• “The Woman Who Married a Snake” — Blackfoot (Native American) folktale retold by American anthropologists Clark Wissler and D.C. Duvall (1908)
• “A Curative Snakepit” — Italian legend retold by scholar Giuseppe Lugli (1924)
• “How Snake Child Was Killed” — Arikara (Native American) folktale retold by American anthropologist Douglas R. Parks (1994)
• “The Story of the Serpent” — Chinese folktale retold by folklorist Tehyi Hsieh (1928)
• “Snakish Ways” — on Greek, Ethiopian, and Egyptian snakes, from the book On the Characteristics of Animals (A.D. 210) by Roman scholar Aelian
Snakes have been integral to humanity’s culture, legends, and literature since the beginning of time; as early as the Bible and The Epic of Gilgamesh, serpents of all types have popped up in mythology, superstition, and folklore. Just think of all the famous stories involving snakes — the deceptive serpent in the Garden of Eden, the giant Python of Delphi slain by Apollo, the hypnotic Kaa in The Jungle Book, even the snaky monsters of Harry Potter and Anaconda — and their clear role as representatives of whatever opposes the current cultural values. The interaction between snakes and humans has been an object of fascination by authors worldwide. Humans seem to be born with an innate fear of snakes and the potential danger they pose, and that fear has made appearances in the songs, literature, and mythologies of almost every culture around the world. We’re just as intrigued by snakes as we are frightened of them, often linking serpents to key concepts like death, seduction, and rebirth.
“Humans tell stories about animals in order to learn about themselves, to ask fundamental questions about how to live and why we die.”
Many of the stories in The Serpent’s Tale go back to primordial creation stories and etiological myths, telling how snakes once lived in harmony with humans and other creatures until something bad happened; others give reasons for why snakes are hated and feared, or how they became what they are now. Every culture’s folktales attribute certain traits to their local wildlife, and snakes seem to be universally portrayed as sly, manipulative, destructive deceivers. It’s truly fascinating how varied and yet how consistent snake folklore is across thousands of years and hundreds of cultures, as if snakes have managed to slither themselves into our literature and make a name that is purely their own. The lines between serpents, dragons, dinosaurs, sea serpents, and local cryptids are often blurred, linking snakes with every biome from rivers and forests to deserts and mountains. Even when snakes are not the focus of a culture’s legends and myths, it’s hard to find a culture that does not at least mention the serpentine creatures that provoke such fantastical folklore.
In literature, snakes are often the bringers of death, creatures that should be feared and revered and avoided at all costs; sometimes they’re helpful, sometimes duplicitous, sometimes just a part of the natural surroundings, but they are always positioned as creatures of import. They are magical, mysterious, fearsome, powerful, sacred, demanding, enticing in turns — they bring good luck and bad omens, act as nuisances and companions, and are portrayed as creatures that must be killed and should not be killed. They are executors of divine retribution, they signify fertility, and they wreak destruction. They often appear in strangely sensual roles (no doubt a topic Freud would have appreciated), representing beauty, charm, and seduction; they trap young women and men into irresistible proposals, intermarry with humans, and give birth to homogenized offspring. Some are anthropomorphized or ambiguously human. Some are primordial beings linked with creation and the early establishment of civilization, while others are gods or spirits in disguise. Some stories even blend snakes with the mythology surrounding vampires and shapeshifters, often delving into the oddly popular species of “snake-people” that deceive and multiply. The snakes in The Serpent’s Tale talk, jump, mate, fight, attack, kill, devour, trick, die, resurrect, breathe fire, shapeshift, demand wives, and control the elements, which if nothing else showcases the shocking panoply of traits humans see in themselves.
McNamee apparently put The Serpent’s Tale together as a simple interest project (he’s the type who seems to have dabbled in almost everything), but I didn’t find many stories that were truly interesting or unique; it’s mostly just an average collection of mentions of snakes in all the stories McNamee could find. There is no apparent organization to the tales — categorizing the stories by region, genre, time period, or type of snake would have been more interesting and organized. None of the stories in this book are actually written, adapted, or translated by McNamee himself; all are cited in a very detailed bibliography at the end of the book with their source material. McNamee does include a little two-sentence introduction to each tale, but he provides none of the insightful commentary or critical connections I was hoping for. I also was hoping for more variety in genres, a blend of popular and obscure tales, and some truly intriguing tales centering on snakes, but McNamee doesn’t quite deliver on any of these fronts.
The selections in The Serpent’s Tale include dozens of types of snakes — rattlesnakes, adders, cobras, boas, sidewinders, garter snakes, copperheads, asps, horned vipers, taipans, sand snakes, coachwhips, grass snakes, lanceheads, watersnakes, pythons, and some legendary ones — from people groups on every inhabited continent through the millennia. McNamee includes snippets of works from famous authors like Emily Dickinson, the Grimm Brothers, and Charles Darwin along with a dizzying array of anthropologists, folklorists, naturalists, ethnographers, explorers, novelists, poets, and historians. Though the majority of this book focuses on the folktales, legends, and myths of different cultures, McNamee incorporates some interesting additional genres: tribal songs, scientists’ field notes, ancient proverbs, potion recipes, etiological myths, cautionary tales, medieval bestiaries, and even the occasional excerpt from works of fiction. The Serpent’s Tale unfortunately follows no clear organization and has no central theme other than “snakes,” and though it was intended to focus on the more obscure legends, I couldn’t help thinking it felt a bit incomplete without some key Bible passages and stories like Cleopatra’s suicide, Remy Van Lierde’s giant snake sighting, and the ubiquitous Loch Ness Monster legends.
Even though McNamee doesn’t provide much philosophical commentary or literary criticism, he at least supplied me with the fodder to write my own (in this review, at least). Some of the tales are memorable — “The Black and White Serpents” and “A Curative Snakepit” stood out to me — but overall this collection is kind of directionless, disorganized, and underwhelming. Maybe some illustrations would have helped!
Tales included in this selection are as follows:
• “How Rattlesnake Learned to Bite” — Akimel O’odham and Miwok (Native American) folktales retold by American anthropologist Frank Russell (1906) and American ethnographer C. Hart Merriam (1910)
• “A Pinacate Weresnake” — on Mexican sidewinders, from the essay “Talking with the Animals” (1987) by American archaeologist Julian Hayden
• “The Three Snake Leaves” — Swabian (German) folktale retold by the Brothers Grimm (1812)
• “A Garter Snake” — from the poem “A Narrow Fellow in the Grass” (1865) by American poet Emily Dickinson
• “Coyote and Rattlesnake” — Zia Pueblo (Native American) folktale retold by Scottish folklorist Lewis Spence (1909)
• “Timber Rattler” — on timber rattlesnakes of New York, from the book Letters from an American Farmer (1782) by French-American author J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur
• “Humpy Lumpy Snakes” — Hawaiian poem by Queen Lili’uokalani of Hawai’i (1897)
• “Yosemite Rattlers” — on rattlesnakes of California, from an essay in the book Our National Parks (1901) by American naturalist John Muir
• “The Jumping Snakes of Sarajevo” — Yugoslavian legend retold in a letter by correspondent M.F. Kerchelich (1950)
• “Proverbs and Customs” — Afghani, Dahomean (Beninese), Romanian, Navajo (Native American), and Moroccan folk beliefs
• “The Asp” — on Egyptian adders, from the book The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents (1658) by English naturalist Edward Topsell
• “The Greedy Minister and the Serpent” — Chinese folktale retold by folklorist Tehyi Hsieh (1928)
• “Thor and the Serpent” — Icelandic myth retold by historian Snorri Sturluson (1919)
• “The Well of Heway” — Mensa Bet-Abrahe (Ethiopian) folktale retold by Austrian author Alice Werner (1915)
• “The Canoe Paddlers” — Ngulugwongga (Australian) folktale retold by Australian anthropologist Ursula McConnel (1957)
• “Flood, Flame, and Headache” — Romanian folktales retold by historian Maurice Gaster (1915)
• “Cobra, Go Away!” — ancient Egyptian prayers from The Book of the Dead translated by English Egyptologist E.A. Wallis Budge (1895)
• “The Lucknow Cobra” — on Indian cobras, from the book Naturalist at Large (1943) by American naturalist Thomas Barbour
• “Taipan the Snake and the Blue-Tongued Lizard” — Mungkjan (Australian) folktales retold by Australian anthropologist Ursula McConnel (1957)
• “The White Adder” — Scottish legend retold by folklorist Andrew Jervise (1853)
• “Texas Snakes” — Mexican-American folktales retold by American rancher Edgar Kincaid (1926)
• “Danger Snake” — Gunwinggu (Australian) folktale retold by anthropologist Catherine Berndt (1950)
• “Albanian Snakelore” — on Albanian grass snakes, from the book High Albania (1909) by English anthropologist Edith Durham
• “Snake and Sparrow” — Palestinian folktale retold by Arab-American translator Inea Bushnaq (1986)
• “Why Rattlesnakes Don’t Cross the River” — Thompson (Native Canadian) folktale retold by American ethnographer Frank B. Linderman (1915)
• “In Search of a Dream” — Santali (Indian) folktale retold by Indian scholar A.K. Ramanujan (1991)
• “Rattlesnake Ceremony Song” — Yokuts (Native American) song translated by American anthropologist A.L. Kroeber (1925)
• “The Fight with Bida” — Soninke (Malian) legend retold by German anthropologist Leo Frobenius (1928)
• “Dangerous Hours” — on Greek folk beliefs, from the book The Dangerous Hour (1970) by American psychologists Richard and Eva Blum
• “Notes from a Bestiary” — on vipers and asps, from a medieval Latin bestiary (12th century) translated in The Bestiary: A Book of Beasts (1954) by English author T.H. White
• “An Argentine Viper” — on Argentine lanceheads, from the book The Voyage of the Beagle (1962) by English naturalist Charles Darwin
• “A Florida Coach-Whip” — on coachwhips of Florida, from the book Travels (1791) by American explorer William Bartram
• “Snake Killer” — from the novel Green Mansions (1904) by W.H. Hudson
• “English Vipers” — on European adders, from the book The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789) by English cleric Gilbert White
• “He Saves a Snake” — Tzotzil (Mayan) folktale retold by American anthropologist Robert M. Laughlin (1997)
• “The Two Sisters and the Boa” — Kucong (Chinese) folktale retold by American translator Lucien Miller (1994)
• “The Origins of the Snake Clan” — Tewa (Native American) folktale retold by American folklorist Elsie Clews Parsons (1926)
• “Coyote Learns a Lesson from Snake” — Wichita (Native American) folktale retold by American ethnographer George A. Dorsey (1904)
• “The Racing Snake” — Creek (Native American) folktale retold by American anthropologist John R. Swanton (1929)
• “The Man Who Became a Snake” — Hitchiti (Native American) folktale retold by American anthropologist John R. Swanton (1929)
• “The White and Black Serpents” — Chinese folktale retold by folklorist Lim Sian-tek (1944)
• “Ancient Snakes” — on Indian and Italian snakes, from the encyclopedia Natural History (A.D. 77) by Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder
• “The Lion and the Snake” — Swahili (East African) folktale retold by American folklorist Harold Courlander (1950)
• “The Origin of the People” — Venda (South African) folktale retold by American folklorist Harold Courlander (1950)
• “Snake Healing Formulas” — Tutsi (Central African) magical songs translated by American folklorist Harold Courlander (1950)
• “The Snake Ogre” — Sioux (Native American) myth retold by American ethnographer Frank B. Linderman (1915)
• “Nife the Snake” — Mono-Alu (Solomon Islands) folktale retold by English anthropologist Gerald Camden Wheeler (1926)
• “The Serpent of the Sea” — Zuni (Native American) folktale retold by American anthropologist Frank Hamilton Cushing (1901)
• “The Moon and the Great Snake” — Cree (Native American) folktale retold by Scottish folklorist Lewis Spence (1909)
• “The Serpent King” — Calabrian (Italian) folktale retold by Italian author Italo Calvino (1956)
• “The Woman Who Married a Snake” — Blackfoot (Native American) folktale retold by American anthropologists Clark Wissler and D.C. Duvall (1908)
• “A Curative Snakepit” — Italian legend retold by scholar Giuseppe Lugli (1924)
• “How Snake Child Was Killed” — Arikara (Native American) folktale retold by American anthropologist Douglas R. Parks (1994)
• “The Story of the Serpent” — Chinese folktale retold by folklorist Tehyi Hsieh (1928)
• “Snakish Ways” — on Greek, Ethiopian, and Egyptian snakes, from the book On the Characteristics of Animals (A.D. 210) by Roman scholar Aelian
January 30, 2022
Interesting amalgam of folk anecdotes, literary shorts, and folktales from around the world.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews