The First Snake

“Oooopiee…Oopiee…”

“Oome, oome…”

Menico, whose nickname was Ome, was calling his friend Pietro. And Pietro, whose nickname was Opie, was answering.

Menico was calling from the railroad station in the middle of the street, and Pietro was answering from a window of his house on the hillside.

It was close to St. Joseph’s Day, the 19th of March. At Cocullo, a village in Abruzzi, Italy, the mountain began to feel the end of winter and the snow began to melt. The first glints of grass began to show between patches of snow melting in the meadows. The first violets bloomed under sunny hedges. According to a local proverb, it was also the time when the first snake pokes its head out of a hole in the ground and basks in the sunlight.

The snake comes out slowly, slowly. It glides lazily, one scale at a time. It seems to be stretching itself sleepily after a long winter’s nap. Bit by bit, it grows longer and longer till it reaches its full length. Then it sheds its skin.

Nearby, a lizard pauses to look at the snake. It listens. It moves closer. Is the snake friend or enemy? The snake’s tongue darts out. The lizard becomes the snake’s victim.

But in rocky Cocullo, it is the snake who never escape. Century after century since the world began, in this haven for snakes, the men have been snake hunters.

“Oopie.”

“Oome.”

The two young snake hunters were calling to each other to go snake hunting.

“Where are you going?” Pietro’s mother asked as he started down the stairs.

“Where am I going?” Pietro repeated. “Do you need to ask? For snakes, Ma, for snakes. It’s in the blood.”

“In the blood? Snake hunting?”

“Yes! For as long as anyone can remember, we of Cocullo have been snake hunters, and those of the Fiocco family even more than the rest.”

Pietro’s father had brought Mother, blond and thin, to that house of swarthy people long ago. Pietro was born dark, too, with velvety dark eyes and jet black hair. His little sister, Livia, was blond and dainty like Mother. When they sat at the table or in front of the house or walked down the road, they seemed to belong to neither the family nor the region.

In fact, everyone called Pietro’s mother “the foreigner.” Everyone. Sometimes, even Grandpa said jokingly, “Hey, foreigner, is the soup ready yet?”

Mother was no longer a foreigner. She had become one of them now, only she did not want to accept the snake customs. But how can one be from Cocullo and not hunt snakes?

In Cocullo, the patron saint is Saint Domenico. On the day of his festival, the first Thursday in May, the people of Cocullo form a procession and carry snakes on a statue of the saint. They also carry the snakes in bunches, in balls, in sacks—the snakes that snake-hunting boys have been collecting since spring arrived in the mountains to melt the snow and warm the rocks.

Pietro’s grandfather was the most famous snake hunter of his time. Even as a boy, Pietro’s father had not always followed the custom. When he married a woman who hated snakes, he gradually stopped hunting them. But Pietro was born with a great interest in snakes. He was a snake hunter of the old school. No boy his age was as clever as Pietro when it came to catching snakes—not even Menico.

Pietro had never hunted poisonous snakes, though. Only one old man, Paolo di Fala, hunted them. His only companion was his old white mule. In good weather he spent a long time in the mountains catching poisonous snakes that he sold to a specialist in the town.

After meeting in front of Pietro’s house, Pietro and Menico walked along a path near the Pezzana River. They walked slowly, talking. Each carried a strong sack and a forked stick—the special stick they used to pin down snakes by the neck.

“Opie,” said Menico, “I think we’ll catch some today.”

“What kind?” asked Pietro.

“Some black snakes, no? The sun is hot, and they’ll be out warning themselves. We’ll catch them as soon as they come out, you’ll see.”

“I’ll see those I catch myself.” And Pietro laughed, looking at his friend sideways.

“What a sly one you are,” said Menico.

“Not sly. Snake hunters are born in my family. Grand-father says that in our house the white snakes don’t come to steal the lamb’s milk, they come to give milk to the babies. That’s why snake hunters are born there and grow there.”

“Opie, your granddad always tells fibs about snakes. Do you think there is a snake that would give milk to babies?”

“Sure I do. Anything is possible.”

Menico shrugged his shoulders. When it came to a member of the Fiocco family who were the leading snake hunters, there was nothing else to do. You either gave in or you challenged them. So Menico gave in. Not because he believed that snakes gave milk to the babies of the Fiocco family, or in the number of snakes, thousands upon thousands, that Pietro’s grandfather claimed to have caught in his time, but because he was very fond of his friend.

Walking and talking, the two snake-hunting boys came to a place where the rocks from the hill formed a kind of plateau.

“Opie, let’s sit down and be quiet. Maybe Gelsomania will come out soon.”

The boys always gave names to the snakes they hunted.

They sat down and made themselves comfortable, but they were very carefull not to loosen any stones. The snake is suspicious and, at the slightest movement, it draws back into its hole in the ground and won’t come out again all that daya.

Almost an hour passed.

“Gelsomina isn’t going to take a walk today,” said Menico.

“She will, Ome, she will,” said Pietro. “How can a snake stay in its hole on a day like this?”

It was truly a beautiful day. There was not even a wisp of cloud in the sky, and the March sun was as warm as that of May.

All of a sudden, a snake cautiously poked its head out of a hole.

It was a black snake, the most harmless of snakes, the kind of snake that slithers away in fright when it sees a man.

“Gelsomina,” whispered Menico. Pietro said nothing, but frowned at his friend and put his fingers to his lips.

Reassured, the snake, wanting the sun, glided forward about a foot—slowly, slowly, sleepily.

The boys looked at one another. Pietro’s dark eyes flashed with light. Menico’s brown eyes remained calm. But both boys were excited.

Gelsomina stopped. She was a foot out of the hole. She was warming up. Then she began to move again and came out until the part of her body which began thinning to word her tail, showed. Then the snake slid all the way out. It was heavy and black against the rocks.

Pietro pounched on the snake, pinning its head to the ground with his forked stick. Then he caught its neck between his thumb and index finger, dropped his forked tongue out, hissing, and puffing itself up like an angry toad. But its rebellion was of no use. The snake was finished—alive—but finished, a prisoner.

“I would have done it,” said Menico. But anyone could see that he really was not disappointed. It was interesting to watch Pietro catch the snake. Pietro was so fast.

“It’s a beauty,” said Menico.

“Beautiful enough to put on the head of the statue of Saint Domenico on the day of his festival. Open the sack, Ome.”

And Menico opened the sack. Pietro pushed the snake into it. Menico tied the string.

“Good night, Gelsomina,” said Menico.

“Good night, little Gelsomina,” said Pietro. “We’ll see you again at the festival of Saint Domenico.”