Snake Charming

Two or three summers ago, I was told a curious story of snake charming by a lady of undoubted veracity, in whose neighbourhood (about a dozen miles from Totnes) the occurrence had taken place. Two coast-guard men in crossing a field fell in with a snake: one of them, an *Irishman*, threw his jacket over the animal, and immediately uttered or muttered a charm over it. On taking up the garment, after a few seconds had passed, the *snake was dead*. When I heard this story, and understood that the operator was an Irishman, I bethought me of how Rosalind says, "I was never so be-rhymed since Pythag…