Snakes in Britain?

[grannybat84112]

'ello.

Sounding out an idea that might, maybe, turn out to have some bearing 
in canon but is off-topic enough in its origins that I'd hesitate to 
start this thread on the main list.

What snakes are native to the British Isles?

I was designing my own Slytherin badge because I haven't found a 
commercial House emblem I like, when I realized the head of a 
rattlesnake wouldn't work because rattlesnakes aren't found in 
Britain. To be honest, the only references to British serpents I've 
seen are garter snakes in quaint English gardens--and they're hardly 
threatening. I'm familiar with the legend of St. Patrick driving the 
snakes out of Ireland, but I understood that to be an allegory about 
the Christians supplanting the druid sects.

Thomas Hardy uses an adder bite as a plot device in Return of the 
Native, but I wouldn't think adders could survive an environment as 
cold and wet as Egdon (sp?) Heath. 

So are there any fanged, venomous serpents common across The Pond? 
And why do snakes as a whole seem to have such a rotten reputation in 
British culture?

Grannybat
a clueless Yank