except where the ammonite-bearing strata are found. These strata in England are the Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks, lying roughly to the east of a line drawn from, say, Sidmouth to the mouth of the Tees; in Ireland the ammonites are confined to the north-east part of Ulster; in Scotland they are found in a few of the Western Isles and a patch on the north-east coast. There are some goniatites, allied to and generally resembling the ammonites, in the Carboniferous rocks, which have a wide range in central and north-west England, south Scotland, and a large part of Ireland; but these do not have the snaky look of ammonites, being plumper-looking and less evident in the strata, and hence less likely to have been noticed by our ancestors.
Passing to England, we read in the Whitby glossary[1] as follows:—
"Snakes, or Snakestones, the fossil Ammonites found with other petrifactions in the Whitby lias or alum rock. These snakestones, according to tradition, were living serpents abounding in the neighbourhood before the coming of St. Hilda [a Latinized form of the Saxon "Hild"], their destroyer, who, with the aid of Oswy, the Saxon king of Northumbria, founded our [i.e. the Whitby] monastery in the 7th century, the place in those days being called Streonshealh [more accurately "Streones-healh" i.e. "Streon's Nook" or "Corner"]. Previously to that time, according to Beda, Streonshealh was 'a desert spot.'"
Mr. Robinson also refers to Marmion, ii. 13, and compares the following lines by Surtees:—
"Then sole amid the serpent tribe
The holy Abbess stood.
With fervent faith and uplift hands
Grasping the holy rood.
The suppliant's prayer and powerful charm
Th' unnumber'd reptiles own;
Each falling from the clift", becomes
A headless coil of stone."
- ↑ Op. cit., part ii., s.v. Snakes, or Snakestones.
