Note 139 — Chapter II · TREE AND SERPENT WORSHIP.
Reading edition
About these snake stones some curious tales are told. By one account, when a goat kills a snake, it eats it and then ruminates, after which it spits out a bead, which, when applied to a snake-bite, absorbs the poison and swells. If it be put into milk, and squeezed, the poison drips out of it like blood, and the bitten person is cured. If it be not put in milk it will burst in pieces. By another account, in the pouch-like appendages of the older Adjutant birds (Leptoptilos Argala) the fang of a snake is sometimes found. This, if rubbed over the place where a poisonous snake has bitten a man, is supposed to prevent the venom spreading to the vital parts of the body. Others say that it is found within the head of the Adjutant, and that it is only necessary to rub it to the bitten place and put it into milk, when it becomes black through the venom. What was known as the Ovum Anguinum of the Britons is said to have been a bead which assists children to cut their teeth and cures the chincough and the ague. Mr. Campbell139 says he once possessed one of these “snake’s eggs,” which was a blue and white glass bead and supposed to be a charm used by the women of the prehistoric races.