Hilda and belief in her imprecation was waning among commoners. The earliest-known form of this trope is a halfpenny piece, privately minted in 1667 by tradesman Henry Sneaton, which bears three coiled serpents with complete heads and forked tongues surrounded by the inscription “In Flower Gate In Whitby.”Įven before that, possibly as early as the 16th century, Whitby residents had begun to carve snake heads at the end of the ammonites’ body whorls-essentially restoring the heads, eyes, and mouths of the cursed snakes. By the 17th century, coiled ammonites began to appear in motifs around town. Over time, Whitby and the legend of snake stones-as the petrified “snakes” are called-became inseparable. Patrick expelled all snakes from Ireland, chasing them into the sea after they assaulted him during a 40-day fast. Hilda’s story also parallels the legend of how St. Cuthbert, a seventh-century monk who was also known for his rosary made from fossilized sea lily stems (aka St. One English naturalist ascribed the legend of Whitby’s snake stones to St. She was also said to have petrified and decapitated snakes, though at an ammonite-rich rock formation in Somersetshire. The theme of snake petrification is repeated in many medieval myths about St. Hilda’s legend dates to 1586 in historian William Camden’s Britannia, though the oral tradition is likely much older. Hilda is carved into a monument known as Caedmon’s Cross in the town of Whitby in Yorkshire, England. It’s no wonder, then, that the ammonite, a naturally occurring logarithmic spiral, is such a widespread source of awe and superstition.Ī depiction of abbess St. And a spiral in nature is all the more impressive. Spirals have captured human imagination for millennia generations of artists and mathematicians have drawn inspiration from the golden spiral, a curve based on the mathematical concept of the golden ratio, for example. In Germany, they were called dragon stones farmers placed them in empty pails to magically spur cows into producing milk. The Blackfoot peoples of North America know them as buffalo stones, because they resemble sleeping bison, and once used them in pre-hunt rituals. Hindus in India and Nepal associate them with Vishnu and the chakras. Crack open a rock containing an ammonite and you’ll see a ribbed, coiled shell-some as wide as a kitchen sink. The myth is one of many worldwide based on ammonites-ancient cephalopods closely related to cuttlefish and nautilus that died out around 66 million years ago. Hilda established in 657 CE in what is now the town of Whitby. Their headless corpses littered the bluffs below the monastery that St. The prayer she uttered turned every snake-icons of evil in Christian mythology-into stone and decapitated them in the process. Hilda of Whitby, a spirited royal from Northumbria, closed her eyes and channeled divine power. On a wind-battered Yorkshire, England, coastline writhing with snakes, St. “Yes,” he replied, “wonderful things.” This column explores other wonderful things-intriguing artifacts or technologies that give insight into coastal cultures. “Can you see anything?” Henry Carter was asked in 1923 as he peered into King Tutankhamun’s tomb.
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