Few creatures excite such a mixture of awe, fear, and fascination as snakes. And few are the subject of so many myths and folk beliefs. One of the oldest is that it was a "snake" in the Garden of Eden which was responsible, in John Milton's words, for bringing "death into the world, and all our woe." But there is no reference to a snake in Genesis; it is, rather, a "serpent" that tempted Eve. Serpents, in antiquity, were not necessarily snakes; any creeping thing, especially if venomous or noxious, was called a serpent. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the term was applied to a variety of creatures, including both salamanders and crocodiles. Admittedly, the temptation of Eve by a crocodile does seem to verge on the ridiculous...
- from The Dictionary of Misinformation, Tom Burnam
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