Surreptitious Snakes

A snake decided to pay me a visit this afternoon, impropmtu to say the least. I was expecting the odd sparrow, possibly a crow or two but a long, black slithering snake had not been on the agenda. I'm still not certain what business he had with me, was it amicable or hostile? I think it was a 'he', the flanking maneuver he executed smacked of masculine fourberie. Though the female snake is known to be most cunning too. In the Chinese folktale "Baishe Zhuan" (The Story of Madam White Snake):

"A young man encountered a beautiful maiden attended by a maid during a festive outing near a lake. He followed her and was invited to her fine mansion outside the city, where he dined and stayed overnight. After that one-night stand, the young man became visibly emasculated, his vital essence being slowly drained. The suspicion that he had been bewitched was confirmed by a revisit to the mansion-in reality, a graveyard. A Taoist was called in to perform an exorcism, and, sure enough, a white snake and an otter were driven out. Upon this skeleton, though, other elements were soon added to give it flesh and substance."

(Whalen Lai, From folklore to literate theater: unpacking 'Madame White Snake'Asian Folklore Studies Vol.51 No.1 April 1992 pp.51-66)

There was no beautiful maiden hiding in this snake and she certainly didn't invite me to her mansion outside the city, well not that I know of anyway. When I first caught site of the intruding reptile I think the eyes of my heart popped out and the remnants of a childhood phobia, the roots of which lie in tales from a next-door neighbour's twisted imagination and that 'snakepit' scene in Indiana Jones, re-surfaced and propmted my brain to administer a rather large dose of adrenaline in my bloodstream. Like a jack-in-the-box, I sprang up from my pic-nic rug, bundled my things and hurried to a safe distance. Once some level of composure returned, I mustered the courage to follow the scaly beast and snap its picture, which I give to you here. I remain straddled over an unabated divide when it comes to snakes: on one side there is fear; childish and squeamish fear pouring from an emotional tap. On the other side is awe and respect, acknowledgement of the fact that humans are not always feared in the animal world.