The Snake tribe is not uncommon in the Punjaub.
Members of it will not kill a snake, and they say that its bite does
not hurt them. If they find a dead snake, they put clothes on it and
give it a regular funeral.
Ceremonies closely analogous to this Indian worship of the snake
have survived in Europe into recent times, and doubtless date from a
very primitive paganism. The best-known example is the "hunting of
the wren." By many European peoples--the ancient Greeks and Romans,
the modern Italians, Spaniards, French, Germans, Dutch, Danes,
Swedes, English, and Welsh--the wren has been designated the king,
the little king, the king of birds, the hedge king, and so forth,
and has been reckoned amongst those birds which it is extremely
unlucky to kill. In England it is supposed that if any one kills a
wren or harries its nest, he will infallibly break a bone or meet
with some dreadful misfortune within the year; sometimes it is
thought that the cows will give bloody milk. In Scotland the wren is
called "the Lady of Heaven's hen," and boys say:
"Malisons, malisons, mair than ten,
That harry the Ladye of Heaven's hen!"
At Saint Donan, in Brittany, people believe that if children touch
the young wrens in the nest, they will suffer from the fire of St.
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