Snakes

Here’s what happens when southern pot-belly stove storytellers in country stores turn to tales of sneaky snakes ... and get on a roll

Copyrighted ink drawing by Richard Svensson. He’s from the South, too ... the village of Bräkne-Hoby in southern Sweden. The image is used with his permission.

Story by Steve A. Maze

The South has always produced its fair share of snake stories. One of the best places I ever heard these stories was from pot-bellied men sitting around a pot-bellied stove at old country stores.

Stories would usually center around the largest snake someone had seen. Of course, it wasn’t unusual to hear about giant rattlesnakes that reached an exaggerated eight to 10 feet long. Of course, these monsters were obligated to have 20 rattles and a button on the end of their tail.

The storytelling would then drift off to more unusual specimens they had personally encountered such as the coachwhip, bull snake, milk snake, hoop snake and joint snakes.

According to the old-timers, the coachwhip is a non-poisonous snake that is black in color and reaches up to six feet in length. Its most unusual trait is the scales on its tail, which appear to be braided or plaited, resembling the leather whips people once used while riding in a buggy.

The snake is known to wrap itself around the leg of a person or animal, and whip its prey with the plaited tail. The tail administers a stinging blow, and the frightened prey can run itself to death with the snake still wrapped around its leg.

Another intriguing species is the milk snake, which has many of the physical characteristics of a black racer. In fact, some people say it is a black racer. The snake is said to have a fetish for milk and will slither up to a pet’s bowl to flick at the nectar with its tongue. The tale most associated with this particular scaly reptile is that it will “milk” a cow.

A farmer once claimed that his cow produced the same amount of milk every morning before she was turned out to pasture, but was dry when he went to milk her each evening. After this happened for several days, he followed to see what was happening.

When she stopped at a creek, he stared in amazement as a black snake raised its head, attached itself to the cow’s udder and milked it, moving from one teat to the other. Mystery solved, the farmer claimed.

The bull snake grows up to five feet in length, and has a yellow-brown or cream colored skin with black and brown markings. Its small head is equipped

with a large nose shield that enables it to dig for burrowing mice and other mammals.

The snake’s most unusual trait is that it makes a loud hissing noise and is sometimes mistaken for a rattlesnake. Old-timers will tell you that it “blows” hard enough to part the grass on the ground. The noise resembles a snorting bull, thus the name bull snake.

One farmer recalled a day when he and his father encountered a bull snake while cutting sugarcane. The son had walked over to the edge of a thicket where a jug of water sat in the shade, and at that moment a startled bull snake reared its head like a cobra and began blowing.

The young man’s father came running with a scythe he was using to cut the sugarcane, but the snake slithered away at great speed before meeting its demise.

Another fascinating serpent is the hoop snake. It is about five feet in length with a black narrow body. Its bite is non-poisonous, but it’s claimed to have a spike – or stinger – on the end of its tail that is supposedly deadly.

The most unusual characteristic of the snake is its uncanny ability to form its body into the shape of a barrel hoop. Actually, it resembles a bicycle tire more than a barrel hoop … at least from what I have been told.

There are two theories as to how it rolls itself into a circular form. The first has the snake grabbing its tail by its mouth and forming a circle so it can roll up on its edge.

The second theory has the serpent holding its tail up into the air and gradually bending it over until a circle is formed. That enables a hoop snake lying at the top of a hill to roll down to the bottom where water might be found.

After the snake gains speed, the spike becomes deadly. A person struck by the stinger will supposedly swell to an unbelievable size and suffer a horrible death.

Several people also told me they had seen a tree struck by the spike. The leaves immediately began to wilt and the tree died within 24 hours. That’s why most old-timers believe the snake bends the tail over to form a circle. It would be hard to strike a person or tree with the stinger in the snake’s mouth.

Perhaps the most fascinating of these unusual reptiles is the joint snake. It is nonpoisonous, dark brown in color, and grows to be more than four feet long. The snake is “jointed,” and these joints will break up into separate pieces when struck by a stick or automobile.

“They just fly to pieces,” an old-timer said.

Becoming disjointed is simply a defense mechanism to fool the aggressor into thinking it is dead. After taking on the appearance of a broken jigsaw puzzle, it is said the snake will “reassemble” the joints and slither away.

Some say the serpent will reassemble after an hour or two, but others say the process takes 24 hours. The snake is also said to hunt down its separated joints so they can be reassembled in the correct order.

I realize some of the snake stories spun around a pot-bellied stove might have been embellished. Most of these old-timers believed the unbelievable encounters with these rare reptiles because they knew someone who had seen them … or they claimed to have seen them in person.

I guess you will have to make up your own mind as to whether you believe them as fact. And a lot of that might depend on whether a coach whip has ever gotten hold of your leg.

Custom Slipcovers, Cushions, Pillows, Window Treatments

Let Judy custom design something that reflects your style. 256-293-2939 email: jcesews4u@aol.com See us on FB or visit jcesews4u.com

G enerations FOOTWEARFOOTWEAR

352 Gunter Avenue, Guntersville

256-582-8995

580 N. Brindlee Mtn. Pkwy., Arab 256-586-0304

P r o u d l y C e l e b r a t i n g 50 O v e r YEARS OF BARBERING East Side Barber Shop 256-734-9969 Established 105 5th St SE 1962 Cullman, AL Next to Busy

Bee Cafe

Bo & Scott Waldrep State Licensed Master Barbers Voted #1 Barber Shop & #1 Barbers