The Durham Serpent May 19, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
Here is a weird little story that allegedly appears in St Nicholas’ Parochial Register, Durham for 1568.
Mdm. that a certain Italian brought into the cittie of Durham, the 11th day of June, in the yeare above sayd, a very great strange and monstrous serpent, in length sixteen feet, in quantitie and dimentions greater than a great horse; which was taken and killed by speciall pollicie in Aethiopia, within the Turkes dominions. But before it was killed, it had devoured (as is credibly thought) more than 1000 persons, and destroyed a whole countrey.
This needs some parsing, not least because of the obscure English.
First, Durham is, after York, the greatest medieval city of the north of England.
Second, a sixteen foot snake would not be impossible by any means: the present world record for a snake is 25 feet; and from the wilds there are descriptions of snakes that are well-over a hundred feet long (sic but pinch salt all over). Note that measuring snakes is notoriously difficult because humans are not good at measuring curves and snakes are not good at going in straight lines.
Third, what does ‘in quantitie and dimentions greater than a great horse’ mean? Are we thinking not so much of a snake as giant lizard of some kind?
Fourth, it was killed (note that it is dead) in Aethiopia in the land of the Turks, a bit like saying ‘Paraguay in the United States’. How can we explain this? Well, ‘Turks’ was used very loosely in the late medieval and the early modern period: as to Ethiopia, a distant and exotic place? (Beach reads ‘speciall pollicie’ to mean by special policy i.e. by orders of someone important, not sure if that is correct.)
Fifth, it had eaten a thousand person… Yada, yada.
Translated into modern English:
An Italian came to Durham, 11/6/1568, with the body of a monster, that was sixteen foot long and as large as a big horse. It had been killed in a far away land after doing a lot of damage.
The first thing here would be to try and understand what the snake (?) in question looked like: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com. If it was really as large as a horse we are presumably talking about some kind of giant lizard with a very long tail, a horse is perhaps eight feet long? If that is correct then the next question is: was it real or had the ‘Italian’ sewn together a cow skeleton and some rubber hosing? Beach would put his money on forgery.
In any case, enjoy the excitement of the good folk of Durham as they come running down from the heights to see, in the market place, ‘the Foul Fiende of Olde Aethiope’ a penny a look.
PS If this really was as big and dramatic as it seems there should be some other sixteenth-century records that describe the same beast. Also how did ‘the Italian’ move it?
Mackensie, Ross An Historical, Topographical and Descriptive View of the County of Durham (1834)Vol 2
19 May 2015: As so often Invisible to the rescue. I suspect that she is (as so often) right. Her point about dragons is particularly well made as the NE of England is dragon country. If it really is girth then what the hell was this?
On the Big Snake of Durham, I take “in quantitie and dimentions greater than a great horse” to mean girth–the snake was bigger around than a great horse. Not reading legs into the use of the word “horse.” The word snake might indicate a big lizard/lizard gaff, but if the thing had legs, would not the showman have labeled it a more exciting Aethiopian dragon? A stuffed snake could be coiled up for carriage on a wagon, then uncoiled in the showman’s tent.
19 May 2015: Old friend of the blog Chris S: ‘First thing came to my mind, “It’s a crocodile.” The hint? “Aethiopia”. Nile crocodiles can grow up to 14 feet long, which is 4 meters to the rest of the world. Consider crocodiles have stubby legs and could reasonably be described as serpentine, this may well have been a specimen of Crocodylus niloticus.’
I [Beach] wonder if Chris hasn’t got it here. Perhaps they even chopped the legs off and bulked up the body, stuffing it with something to get Invisible’s girth? Here is a record of something that sounds like a crocodile elsewhere in medieval England.
