Snakes in Britain?

[junediamanti]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "grannybat84112" 
<grannybat at h...> wrote:
> '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

Adders and grasssnakes

And really glad I don't have to explain about the druids.

June