Victorian Urban Legends: Sewer Snakes September 25, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
The search for the original sewer dwelling creature continues. The first reference to sewer snakes comes from a British newspaper in 1888.
It is agreeable to recall that, not long ago, a huge boa-constrictor was discovered in a Vienna sewer, the serpent having evidently escaped from a menagerie, and either taken refuge there from cold, or entered it in pursuit of rats.
In fact, the above is likely a misremembering, on the part of a harassed journalist, of this story from the year before from Paris, which is credible and factual sounding:
Some sewermen at work yesterday evening under the Boulevard La Villette were startled by a shrill hissing sound which they mistook for the call of some men who might have descended into the sewer on a nefarious errand. The foreman, however, resolutely took up shovel and made his way the spot whence the sound had proceeded, and there discovered a boa constrictor coiled round one the water-mains. Attacking it forthwith, he succeeded in despatching it by a few vigorous and well-directed blows, surmised that the boa, which measured seven feet in length and one foot girth, had escaped from menagerie exhibition the fair at Villette. Dundee Evening Telegraph (13 Aug 1887), 3
A very factual sewer snakes story comes, instead, from London in 1903
A snake 6 feet 8 inches long was caught alive in a manhole at Arthur Street, Chelsea, a day or two ago, and now is on show at the Public Library, Manresa Road. Boulerger, of the National History Museum, South Kensington, examined the reptile, and says it is an Indian rattlesnake.
Perhaps the croc sewer legend grew out of isolated factual sewer snake references like those above? Our earliest sewer monster remains the notorious boar of the London sewers and we must all hope that that was a tale…
Other early sewer monsters: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
