By Kyle Wright
Ophidiophobia. That’s the scientific term for the fear of snakes. I don’t suffer from the phobia, myself, though I know there are plenty of people that do. It’s believed that a third of humanity is afraid of snakes. There was actually a time in my life, probably because of my father’s work as a wildlife biologist, when I thought I wanted to be a herpetologist. That’s not to say that I haven’t had some scares with snakes through the years. I had a close call with a Timber Rattler once while picking blackberries and another with a fat Cottonmouth on a boat ramp. I killed a Western Diamondback on a muzzleloader hunt a few years back. So, I understand how people get scared. But there are times when that fear becomes irrational and that’s when stories get embellished.
For instance, early settlers in colonial Virginia lived in morbid fear of the Hoop Snake. Legend has it that the Hoop Snake could take his tail in his jaws and balance on his belly, forming a hoop. Hence, the name. If spooked, the snake would slither away in retreat, but if he shifted into attack mode, he’d roll like a wheel straight towards whatever it was that was threatening him and strike with either its venomous fangs or its venomous tail. With the ability to roll a man down and venom spewing out of both ends, the Hoop Snake inspired phobia and to spare.
Then there’s the legend of the Glass Snake. That one is a bit more believable. Or it’s easier to connect the dots between the legend and its origin story, anyway. I caught legless lizards as a kid that looked just like snakes. Those legless lizards could throw their tails the minute they felt threatened. As defense mechanisms go, it’s an effective one. A wriggling appendage can occupy a predator’s attention long enough to make a getaway. Legend has it, though, that the Glass Snake, also known as the Joint Snake, could not only throw its tail but could split itself into multiple segments, and then, after danger had passed, reassemble those segments and slither on about its business.
Fear the Joint Snake
It’s the Joint Snake, incidentally, that’s featured on a 1754 political cartoon attributed to Benjamin Franklin. The cartoon was printed in an attempt to convince the colonies that they needed to unite against the French. The warning written underneath the drawing of that segmented snake reads “Join, or Die.”
My paternal grandmother, Mamaw, we called her, was deathly afraid of snakes. She was also a devoted acolyte of the Joint Snake legend. Her family farmed cotton in southwest Oklahoma, so the woman was handy with a garden hoe. That garden hoe was used to swift and devastating effect on any snake that dared slither into her yard. She would immediately chop the snake’s head off, but swift and simple decapitation wasn’t enough. Not by half. Mamaw would systematically hack the snake into pieces with her hoe and then have her boys bury the bits in different spots all over the yard so that the snake couldn’t shake off its recent death and dismemberment and seek its revenge.
The legend of the Joint Snake goes on to say that, if need be, the serpent could even incorporate foreign objects into its reconstruction, foreign objects like knives and saw blades. Where exactly the Joint Snake found those sharp objects isn’t clear, but imagine, if you will, being chased by a scaled and slithering butcher knife hell bent on retaliation. On second thought, maybe there’s something to this ophidiophobia thing after all.
