Good Old Aesop: The Man and the Snake

Aesop certainly knew how to tell a tale, and how to pinpoint human behavior. This tale, which has been told and re-told in many cultures (some probably even pre-dating Aesop--he got his tales from somewhere, after all!) was mentioned by a storytelling friend recently, and it seems apt for our times.

The Man and the Snake

 A man was out walking one cold winter day when he heard a rustling sound nearby. he investigated and found a snake, curled up near a rock. 

The snake looked up and spoke. "I am about to die. It is too cold for me. Please, put me under your coat and warm me."

"No," said the man. "I know you. If I pick you up, you will bite me, and your bite will kill me."

"No," said the snake. I promise I will not bite you if you will save my life."

Finally the man gave in. He picked up the snake and tucked it into his jacket, where the heat from his body would provide warmth. When he reached his home he walked over to the fireplace and unbuttoned his jacket. As he pulled the snake out the snake struck, sinking its fangs deep into the man's arm.

"What did you do?" the man cried. "Why did you bite me? I saved your life! I trusted you!"

"Ah," said the snake. as the man laid dying on the floor. "Yes, you saved me. But you knew I was a snake when you picked me up."

This story is often told by storytellers as a warning against drugs and other potential addictions and addictive behaviors.

There are many other versions of this story. Here are a half dozen of online sources:

Wikipedia offers a wide variety of versions of the story.

Fables of Aesop includes this story along with many more.

First People website has a Cherokee tale with the same theme.

Storyteller Mike Lockett offers his adaptation of the story on his site.

The venerable Snopes explores a few variants with different creatures in the starring roles. 

There's even a song by Johnny Rivers about this fable:

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

The Rest of the Story

Dolly Sods, Part 2:

As my sister Mary headed off the road to look at something, I cautioned, "Watch out for rattlesnakes." Judy was ready with a camera and her picture of Mary--and Theresa laughing--says all that needs to be said about the impact of my words. Of course there was no snake. Then.

We left Dolly Sods and headed downhill, stopping to look at the view and at wildflowers we somehow missed on the way up. The gas gauge was getting more interesting all the time--even the light was coming on to say, "Stupid! You should have bought gas before you came up here!" But you see, my Rendezvous has an odd gas gauge--when there is almost half a tank it will drop to empty and RUN OUT OF GAS if I'm on the wrong kind of downhill slope. I know because twice it ran out of gas in my driveway parking spot, even though I knew it had plenty in the tank. Which gave Larry all sorts of "I told you so" ammunition.

But to get back to our trip...


So we looked at flowers and took pictures of the view and no one was really looking at the road--except me because this is a typical one-lane-bumpy gravel-West-Virginia-road and you'd better be paying attention or you'll jar your teeth out in the potholes. And that's why I saw him--or her.

I didn't get close enough to determine the sex. This Eastern Timber Rattler was a beauty and apparently recently shed its skin because it was very brightly and freshly colored. It had nine rattles and a button, Larry told me (you know that by counting the rings at the end of its tail) which means it was no spring chicken.

The snake was about 3-4 feet long and it seemed to be enjoying the warm sun on the road. Even when we tossed some pebbles and a cracker at it (okay, that was me--I thought it might be hungry and want a cream cheese and chives cracker!) it didn't offer to shake its rattles. We stayed in the Rendezvous, of course--except Judy who went around back of the car to look more closely at our friend. Mary and Theresa really weren't interested in looking!

When we left, the snake continued sunning itself. We hadn't disturbed its plans at all.

(And yes. We made it to the gas station with plenty of gas to spare. As soon as we hit a level spot, the light went out and the gauge returned to its correct position. Weird car.)

Snake in the Grass, Snake in the Road

Snake in the grass...

crosses the road, looking cross.

Sees me,

tastes the air,

...and leaves the area.

'Bye snake!

(I'm wondering if he was heading for the chicken house again. This morning we were missing a few eggs. Hmmm. Last time he showed up, Larry dowsed him with a bucket of cold water. Might be time for another bath.)

I just call these 6-footers black snakes. Do they have another, more specific name? I can't recall ever hearing one.

Morning Visitor

Hidden in the grass by the water spigot, a black racer seemed to think he was invisible to us. He certainly surprised Larry, who flung a bucket of cold water on the snake!

And the racer decided it was time to leave.

Unfortunately, he decided to head in the direction of the chicken house.

Which did nothing for Larry's peace of mind.

But the snake passed the coop and kept on going into the woods. I guess a cold morning bath was not to his liking.

An Hour Outside with My Camera

Starting at the old cellar door...

and onto the porch, the snakeskin found by Haley and Hannah in the chicken house...

to the grape arbors and the bluebird who has a nest in the hole in one post..

to the second snakeskin, also in the chicken house (and the probable reason for the sudden decline in eggs)...

and how odd to see where the eyes and mouth of the snake were...

to the deck, where a wasp has found an easy waterhole...

out to garden where a bumblebee feasts on coneflower...

joined by a Black Swallowtail...

and on the peach tree, an Eastern Fence Lizard who posed for many photos...

as you can see...

It was a lovely hour, and I was never more than 100 feet from my front door.

Stepping on Snakes

Snake in the tobacco barn--can you see it on top of the window frame? The barn was torn down this year.


Derek needed to borrow a truck last night. His old faithful pickup was exhibiting signs of trouble and there was no time to fix it before he deployed for Iraq. So he came over with his girlfriend Tiffany to borrow a vehicle for the next couple days.

As we sat out on the deck, talking in the half-dark, Tiffany started out the walk to the driveway. We heard a sharp, sudden squeal and by the time we turned to look, she was about four feet in the air and moving fast.

"What's the matter?" Derek called.

"Snake!" was the reply. "I almost stepped on it!"

It turned out to be a young milk snake, brightly colored and moving faster than Tiffany had. It slid off into the woods and we went back to the deck.
We all now knew one fact for certain: white women can jump.

That incident led to "remember when" stories. One person's tale led to another person's memory, story to story for the rest of the evening. Remember when I stepped on that black snake in the chicken house? Remember when Aaron stepped on the copperhead in the tobacco patch when he was barefoot? Remember when the black snake got into the canning jars? Remember that black snake that went from bird house to bird house? Remember when I carried in the little green garter snake in the basket of cabbages from the garden? Remember that copperhead you pinned with the shovel and then couldn't move because he was still striking?

(Writing this I realize that we have a lot of snake stories in our family; fortunately only a few involve poisonous varieties.)

The stories helped us relax. Remembering funny times, strange times and family times reinforced yet again the bond of family and the roots of home. We shared the richness of our lives, acknowledging without so many words that these memories are important and define us as a family. Not our ancestry or bloodlines, but these shared stories and memories are what tie us irrversibly together in time.

Though there may be many snakes to avoid and a few stepped on in the year to come, they will become the stuff of future stories, adding to the security that we know who we are and where we come from. We're not scared of them or anything else that might come our way. We're ready for the next challenges, looking ahead to when we'll all be on the deck again and someone will say, "Remember the time Tiffany stepped on that snake?" And we will remember and laugh, and move on to the next story.

Memorial Day part 2: No Water and One Snake

The last post I wrote was about sons and stories and graveyard visits. This is the next part of the weekend.

Friday before Memorial Day, both Larry and I were off work. We stayed home, ready for our sons and their famileis to arrive. About 3pm I put in the last load of wash--and there was no water. None. Zip.

Quick call to the well guy. He said to turn off the breaker, wait an hour and call him back. We did. Called back. Got his voicemail. Bummer.

Next step was to figure out how to cope: lots of company and no water. Rearranged the guests--men can handle lack of water, women and girls revolt. Female guests to stay at Derek's house, a few miles away, and two of the guys here. Trip to town for bottled water and gallon jugs of drinking water. Realization that our pool had about 7000 gallons of water we could use to flush the commode. We were set for a weekend without water.

Saturday was a fine day. I cooked a big country breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, grits. The men looked at the pump to figure out what was wrong. They decided our pump was dead. Our well is 723 feet deep, and replacing the pump is about $2000 more than we figured on spending this weekend. Still, if it's gone, it's gone, and we'd have to cough up the money if it came to that. Everyone left for various points in the afternoon, and only Larry, George, Clayton and I spent the night here.


Sunday morning, still no water. Poppa Larry and grandson Clayton decided to make a bow and arrow from sticks and string. That was because Larry told him about the time he was playing cowboys and Indians in an abandoned house. They played for real--their arrows were sharpened to fine points on the end. When Larry spotted a boy named Booge leaning out a broken second-floor window, he saw a great opportunity. He sneaked up behind Booge and let his arrow fly. It hit Booge square in the back, and he fell out of the window yelling AGH! It was just like the movies. When Booge hit the ground, though, the movie stopped and reality started. Larry got chased all the way home by one mad big boy. Narrow escape from certain pain.

After that story (which also had to include a description of cap wire that coal camp kids used to string their bows, and how they used dynamite to mine house coal) Clayton had to have a bow. He and Larry went in search of the right wood and I started yet another breakfast for the ones who would soon be arriving.

I looked outside and saw Clayton and Larry whittling a stick. That was too good a picture, so I stepped out the door on my way to get my camera out of the car. There on the porch was a five foot black snake, sunning on the warm floor.

Yeah right. That was my first reaction. Larry put a rubber snake there to scare me. Then it moved. Not a rubber snake. I yelled for Larry and grabbed a rake and started pushing the snake off the porch. It didn't want to go and made it clear by hissing at me and trying to bite the rake. I finally got it off the porch and onto the sidewalk when Larry and Clayton arrived--and scared the snake under the porch.

Now I don't mind snakes. They have their place in the food chain and are handy to have around barns and sheds. We always have one living in one of our outbuildings, it seems. But they have all the outdoors to roam, so when they invade my space, they're cheating. I only have a few square feet compared with their kingdoms. A snake under the porch means there could very well be a snake under the house. A snake under the house just might decide to climb up a water pipe or something and be inside the house. And that is completely against my rules of co-existence.

As we were talking about how to get the snake out from under the porch, the dogs decided it for us. There was a sudden, loud, furious battle. Clayton ran to look, and saw Raven come out victorious with the recently deceased snake.

I can't say I was happy about it. I would have preferred to chase the snake off into the woods. On the other hand, I didn't want the snake under the house either. Clayton took it up into the woods and left it there.

They say that a snake never dies until after sunset. I meant to go up the hill and see if the body was still there in the afternoon, but I never had time that day. So I don't know if that legend is true. I'll just believe that it is.