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SNAKE. 685
census are no slight testimony to the genuineness and oldness of
the biography. Here then we have a striking instance of an
idol made of gold, and moreover of the Christian teacher s en
deavour to preserve the sacred material, only converting it into a
Christian form. What higher being the snake represented to the
Lombards, we can scarcely say for certain ;
not the all- encircling
world-snake, the mrSgarSs-ormr, iormungandr of Norse myth
let alone
ology, for there is not a hint that even in the North,
elsewhere, he was visibly represented and worshipped. Ofnir
and Svdfnir are ON. names of snakes, and side-names of 03inn
(conf. p. 144) ; is it Wuotan that we are to understand by the
summus deus of the Lombards ? l But the special character
istics of their snake- worship are entirely lost to us. If the term
vipera was deliberately chosen, as I have no doubt it was, it can
only mean one of the smaller kinds of snake (coluber berus),
OHG. natarGi, AS. ncedre, ON. na&ra (also masc. naiSr, like Goth,
nadrs), though the simulacrum, of whose gold a plate and chalice
could be made, bespeaks a considerable size.
Lombard legend has more to tell us of snakes, and those
expressly small ones. The Heldenbuch describes the combat of
a small fire-spitting beast on the Gartensee (L. di Garda) with
Wolfdietrich and a lion, to both of whom it gives enough to do :
Nun horent durch ein wunder, wie das tierlein 1st genant :
es heisst zu welsch ein zunder, zu teutsch ein saribant,
in Sittenland nach ereii ist es ein vipper genant ;
and it is added, that there are but two such vipers alive at once,
for the young ones soon after birth eat up their parents. This
agrees closely with the statements in the Physiologus (Diut. 3,
29, 30. Hoffm. fundgr. 28). I cannot explain zunder from any
Italian dialect ; saribant is the MHG. serpant, Trist. 8994. Sit
tenland I take to be the canton Yalais, from its capital Sitten
(Sion) ; there the Eomance vipera might easily remain in use
(Grisons vipra, vivra) . In the Jura a never- dying winged snake
with a diamond eye is called vouivre, Mem. des antiq. 6, 217. In
Switzerland this snake in called stollenwurm (Wyss s Eeise ins
Berner Oberland, p. 422), and in Salzburg birgstutze, Schin. 1,
196 (see SuppL).
1 Summi pro magn. Dei may possibly mean instead of (worshipping) the
majesty of the Most High. TRANS.