Bosom Lizards in Ireland September 2, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary , trackback
Beach has recently run across an incredible folklore and forteana resource: the transcripts of the 1930s Irish Schools survey where local traditions were written down by budding students and their teachers: thanks to Stephen D for sending it in. There is a lot to get excited about but first off here are three bosom serpent stories. Attentive readers will remember that bosom serpents are animals that enter the human body and dwell there: typically snakes, but sometimes other creatures including dogs, mice and scorpions. In Ireland snakes were not available so the Gaels went for the next best thing: lizards… Curiously, in other parts of Europe lizards had the reputation of preventing snakes entering the body of sleeping men. Note also the strange use of fish: something not paralleled elsewhere in Europe?
Other misbehaving lizards from Ireland: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
Long ago a man went out in a meadow field and sat down by the ditch and went to sleep and while he was sleeping he had his mouth open and a lizard went into it. He used to eat an awful lot and still he could not take the hunger and thirst off himself. He went to every doctor and any of them could not cure him. Then somebody told him of skilful man and he went to him and told him and he told him to roast a herring in the fire and to eat every bit of the herring. There was a stream outside the man’s door and he told him to hold his mouth over the stream and not to drink any of the drop of the water at all. One time he got very thirsty altogether and he was just going to drink the water when out of his mouth walked the lizard and nine young ones.
School: An Churrach (Crogh), Árd Fhionáin (roll number 7911), 338-9
Location: Curragh, Co. Tipperary
There was a poor man one time and he had to work very hard to support his wife and family and there was one particular day when he looked forward to his dinner which was to be brought to the land where he worked on. But it passed well over the usual time for dinner and the poor man got tired and laid down under the ditch and finally fell asleep. This particular place where the man laid down had been a very noted place for lizards and it was a usual thing in these days of a lizard getting into the mouth but a great stroke of misfortune befell this poor man during his slumber, this witty lizard stole his way gently around and crept gently into the man’s mouth and into his stomach so when he awoke he found himself to be very weak and hungry. So his poor wife was very uneasy expecting her husband was going to die so all the local people had great sympathy for this poor woman and brought her any amount of food for the hungry man but all happened to be a failure with the man and he could not get enough to eat or drink so they had doctor’s opinion and all proved useless for the poor hungry many so finally a very old resident in the neighbourhood heard tell of the poor man’s plight so he sent for this old man to call to his house and he told him how he suffered with the hunger. This very old man suspected that he should have swallowed a lizard and his cure was to get a bag of salty herrings, and get his wife to boil them in a big pot altogether so the poor woman thought the bag of herrings were going to kill her poor man but the poor man had so much confidence in his old neighbour he carried out his instructions to the letter: he was to take nothing else for three days in shape of food or drink so on the fourth day he went out to the back of his house where there was a stream of water and there he laid down on his face and hands and opened his mouth in front of the running water and out came the old lizard and in a very short time there comes a young brood of nine so that finished the tale of the poor man’s plight. The old saying make the lizard dry and he look for the water himself. Thanks to this very old man who thought of the herrings.
School: Béal Átha Gabhann (Silvermines), Nenagh (roll number 15696), 187-8
Location: Silvermines, Co. Tipperary
Long ago as a man was sleeping on the hill with his mouth open, a lizard came along and went into the man’s mouth and went into his stomach. About a week after the man was sick and he went for a doctor. he said that there was some living animal inside his stomach. There was a woman living near the man and she was very clever. The sick man went to the woman and told her his story. Then the woman tied the man’s leg to the rafter of the house and fried a fish. She put the fish under the man’s head and the lizard smelled the fish and he crept out to the man’s mouth. He got in dread and he was creeping back into the man’s stomach again when the man caught him around the neck with his teeth and cut off his head.
School: An Cam (Camp), Tra Lí, 30-1
Location: Camp, Co. Kerry
29 Sep 2016: Davide Ermacora the great bosom serpent writes in to note that he is convinced that somewhere in Ireland there will be a snake living in a man or a woman. Certainly the absence of snakes from Irish fields has not prevented them from being big in Irish legend. Thanks, Davide!
