THE MYSTERIES OF AVALON: CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Druid’s Egg: Just What Was It?

A lot of mystery still clings to the object described by Pliny in his Natural History as the serpent’s egg. As I have always been interested in herpetoculture, I decided to approach this problem from the standpoint of someone who has some knowledge of reptile life cycles and especially the mating process.

Mary Jones has kindly provided the full text of the relevant passage on the serpent’s egg at

http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/classical_pliny.html#29:

Chap. 12: Serpents’ Eggs

“In addition to the above, there is another kind of egg, held in high renown by the people of the Gallic provinces, but totally omitted by the Greek writers. In summer time, numberless snakes become artificially entwined together, and form rings around their bodies with the viscous slime which exudes from their mouths, and with the foam secreted by them: the name given to this substance is “anguinum.” The Druids tell us, that the serpents eject these eggs into the air by their hissing, and that a person must be ready to catch them in a cloak, so as not to let them touch the ground; they say also that he must instantly take to flight on horseback, as the serpents will be sure to pursue him, until some intervening river has placed a  barrier between them. The test of its genuineness, they say, is its floating against the current of a stream, even though it be set in gold. But, as it is the way with magicians to be dexterous and cunning in casting a veil about their frauds, they pretend that these eggs can only be taken on a certain day of the moon; as though, forsooth, it depended entirely upon the human will to make the moon and the serpents accord as to the moment of this operation.

I myself, however, have seen one of these eggs: it was round, and about as large as an apple of moderate size; the shell of it was formed of a cartilaginous substance, and it was surrounded with numerous cupules, as it were, resembling those upon the arms of the polypus: it is held in high estimation among the Druids. The possession of it is marvellously vaunted as ensuring success in law-suits, and a favourable reception with princes; a notion which has been so far belied, that a Roman of equestrian rank, a native of the territory of the Vocontii, who, during a trial, had one of these eggs in his bosom, was slain by the late Emperor Tiberius, and for no other reason, that I know of, but because he was in possession of it. It is this entwining of serpents with one another, and the fruitful results of this unison, that seem to me to have given rise to the usage among foreign nations, of surrounding the caduceus with representations of serpents, as so many symbols of peace–it must be remembered, too, that on the caduceus, serpents are never represented as having crests.”

Now, I will first correct the notion that the word ‘anguinum’ means ‘egg’. It does not. Anguinum is from Latin anguinis and means simply “of serpents, snaky”. In other words, the egg is ‘of [or from] serpents’.

Many attempts to identify the serpent’s egg have been made. Most are quite without foundation. I have read everything from various fossils, sea urchin skeletons, Roman period glass beads, certain naturally occurring gemstones, etc. The most obvious candidate, for some reason, has been overlooked: the serpent’s egg is a serpent’s egg. Sometimes a cigar is merely a cigar!

The mass of entwined snake bodies encountered in the summer, the presence of an egg, and the double reference to water points solidly to the Common European Grass Snake or Natrix Natrix (from nato, ‘to swim’). The grass snake, to which we may compare the North American garter snake, is an extremely aquatic reptile. Furthermore, in early summer the animals emerge from hibernation, with males immediately seeking out females. The result is the formation of “mating balls”, i.e. masses of male snakes surrounding a female snake. These mating balls are clearly what Pliny is describing as the action that leads to the production of the serpent’s egg.

Now, snake eggs are not hard like bird eggs. They are soft, supple and leathery. If they become too dry (and also sometimes just before hatching) they can become all indented. If allowed to dry out completely (something which, of course, kills any embryos inside the eggs), the egg becomes hardened and wrinkled/pockmarked. This description fits exactly that offered by Pliny for the serpent’s egg.

Pliny says the egg is the size of a moderate apple. But we must remember that apples in Pliny’s day were of the Malus sylvestris variety, i.e. of the crab apple, which were quite small. A crab apple is usually reckoned as being 1-2 inches in diameter. The size of Natrix Natrix eggs are 25-30mm x 16-20mm when laid, with an increase in size by several mm within a couple of weeks. 30 mm is just over 1 inch, so the size of the grass snake’s egg matches exactly that of a crab apple.

Snake eggs, when laid in a clutch, are moist with a sort of “glue”, and they adhere together. I take this ‘glue’ as the reality behind Pliny’s “viscous slime’ secretion. It may be, then, that a serpent’s egg should instead be read as serpent’s EGGS. A small grouping of eggs stuck together and then allowed to dry out would conform nicely to his account of this object.

As to the eggs only being taken on a certain day of the moon… Snakes, because they shed and are thus “reborn”, were associated with the moon, which periodically ‘died’ and was reborn through the process of its phases. However, it has also occurred to me that as a Natrix Natrix egg is oval and white, it may have symbolized the moon itself in either its waxing or waning gibbous stage. Hence the time to collect the eggs for druidic ritual purposes or for talismans would be during a gibbous moon. Thus not only was the serpent’s egg the egg of the female lunar snake, but it contained within it a new baby snake – a New Moon – ready to be reborn.

I’m sure there will be those to object to this simplistic explanation of the druid’s egg. And they will do so, perhaps vociferously, even though the concept behind the implied symbolism is quite profound.