Tunn11
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2005
- Messages
- 2,248
- Location
- Under the highest tree top in Kent
This sounds like a typical tall tale, but as some of these have a basis in reality and as I'd not heard of it I thought I'd ask on here.
I'm reading Rick Atkinson's "The British are Coming" about the American War of Indepenence In this he quotes General Clinton, at the time (1776) in the Carolinas who had an interest in the natural history of the area. He wrote to a colleague in Boston:
"Among other extraordinary things we have the whipping snake, which meets you in the road and lashes you unmercifully..... We re told that two or three of them will kill a horse."
It seems a strange terminolgy "in the road" as I could imagine a snake in a tree falling on or somehow bashing against an unwary traveller and giving rise to a belief that it had whipped someone and although the phrase doesn't rule that out the implication is of the snake being on the ground ("in the road")
Now all this sounds on a par with sky hooks and tartan paint but, on a superficial look, I can't find any reference to the myth here or on Karl Shuker's site and weird tales about animals known and unknown seem to get a mention in one of these places. Given all the mythology about snakes one with the ability to whip almost sounds like a natural to fool the "tourists".
Anyone heard the story before either from the US or elsewhere?
I'm reading Rick Atkinson's "The British are Coming" about the American War of Indepenence In this he quotes General Clinton, at the time (1776) in the Carolinas who had an interest in the natural history of the area. He wrote to a colleague in Boston:
"Among other extraordinary things we have the whipping snake, which meets you in the road and lashes you unmercifully..... We re told that two or three of them will kill a horse."
It seems a strange terminolgy "in the road" as I could imagine a snake in a tree falling on or somehow bashing against an unwary traveller and giving rise to a belief that it had whipped someone and although the phrase doesn't rule that out the implication is of the snake being on the ground ("in the road")
Now all this sounds on a par with sky hooks and tartan paint but, on a superficial look, I can't find any reference to the myth here or on Karl Shuker's site and weird tales about animals known and unknown seem to get a mention in one of these places. Given all the mythology about snakes one with the ability to whip almost sounds like a natural to fool the "tourists".
Anyone heard the story before either from the US or elsewhere?
