Angel of death, or slithering chain letter? You get to decide, in today’s entry in the #summerofmonsters.
Snakes are one of the most universally abhorred monsters. Out for a pleasant cruise across the ocean? ‘Ware the sea serpent. Crossing a stream during a cattle drive to Montana? Watch out for water moccasins. Taking a refreshing walk in the desert sun? A telltale rattle, and then death bites your ankle. Heck, according to “Harry Potter,” a girl can’t even go cry in the bathroom without being turned to stone by a giant 40-foot snake that comes thundering out of the loo.
The cemetery snake is a legless monstrosity that is lethal to look at. Its name comes from its natural habitat; not the sea, not the desert, and not the inside of your pennyloafers, but the graveyard.
Marked with purple and black bands, the cemetery snake arrives uninvited at a funeral. No one wants to be rude and risk a confrontation, so while they politely ask other mourners if they recognize that charming, colorful snake, it makes its way to the front of the line and winds its way around the coffin.
A copperhead’s venom is in its fangs. The power of a basilisk to petrify lies in its eyes. The full might of a cemetery snake is in its appearance. Anyone who sees it, dies about 20 minutes later.
That was the case in Woodbridge, N.J., in 1896 at the funeral of one Lora Lorch. Her brother saw a cemetery snake on her coffin and soon expired of an apparent heart attack. Three days later, at his funeral, his friend Buddy saw one, and he died; and so on.
By the time authorities investigated reports that the funeral director’s son, Kevin, had been taking up herpetology and had been seen handling purple-banded snakes, it was too late. The funeral home had experienced a banner year, but the entire surrounding neighborhood of Colonia had been decimated, its properties abandoned and the economy was in ruins.
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