to the ground.[38]

[Serpents eggs or Snake Stones.]

In ancient Gaul certain glass or paste beads attained great celebrity as
amulets under the name of serpents' eggs; it was believed that serpents,
coiling together in a wriggling, writhing mass, generated them from
their slaver and shot them into the air from their hissing jaws. If a
man was bold and dexterous enough to catch one of these eggs in his
cloak before it touched the ground, he rode off on horseback with it at
full speed, pursued by the whole pack of serpents, till he was saved by
the interposition of a river, which the snakes could not pass. The proof
of the egg being genuine was that if it were thrown into a stream it
would float up against the current, even though it were hooped in gold.
The Druids held these beads in high esteem; according to them, the
precious objects could only be obtained on a certain day of the moon,
and the peculiar virtue that resided in them was to secure success in
law suits and free access to kings. Pliny knew of a Gaulish knight who
was executed by the emperor Claudius for wearing one of these
amulets.[39] Under the name of Snake Stones (_glain neidr_) or Adder
Stones the beads are still known in those parts of our own country where
the Celtic population has lingered, with its immemorial superstitions,
down to the present or recent times; and the old story of the origin of
the beads from the slaver of serpents was believed by the modern
peasantry of Cornwall, Wales, and Scotland as by the Druids of ancient
Gaul. In Cornwall the time when the serpents united to fashion the beads
was commonly said to be at or about Midsummer Eve; in Wales it was
usually thought to be spring, especially the Eve of May Day, and even
within recent years persons in the Principality have affirmed that they
witnessed the great vernal congress of the snakes and saw the magic