ing about the neighbouring country. It was at this wild nook he
came to know a viper-catcher and herbalist, a quaint figure in a skin
cap, and with stout gaiters, who was catching a viper when the boy first
made his acquaintance. "'What do you think of catching such a thing as
that with the naked hand?' asked the old fellow. 'What do I think?' said
I. 'Why, that I could do as much myself.'" This ruffled the old man's
pride, but later he became quite friendly and explained that he hunted
the vipers for their fat, to make unguents especially for rheumatism, and
also collected simples, knowing he virtues of such as had medicinal
value. On one of his excursions this primitive sportsman told him the
marvellous tale of the King of the Vipers. The old fellow was wakened
from his sleep one sultry day by a dreadful viper moving towards
him--"all yellow and gold . . . bearing its head about a foot and a-half
above the ground, the dry stubble crackling beneath its outrageous belly
. . . then it lifted its head and chest high in the air, and high over my
face as I looked up, flickering at me with its tongue as if it would fly
at my face. Child," continued the narrator, "what I felt at that moment
I can scarcely say, but it was a sufficient punishment for all the sins I
ever committed; and there we two were, I looking up at the viper, and the
viper looking down upon me, flickering at me with its tongue." Happily a
sharp gun report close at hand frightened the reptile away. Before
leaving the neighbourhood the viper-catcher presented his child friend
with a specimen which he had tamed and rendered harmless by removing the
fangs. This creature the queer boy fed with milk and often carried with
him in his walks.

This episode resulted in experiences which coloured all the rest of
Borrow's life, for, soon after, when he first came among gypsy tents, and
saw the long-haired woman with skin dark and swarthy like that of a toad,
and a particularly evil expression, and when her husband threatened to
baste the intruder with a ladle, the boy broke forth into what in Romany
would be called a "gillie," or ditty, ending--

"My father lies concealed within my tepid breast,
And if to me you offer any harm or wrong,
I'll call him forth to help me with his forked tongue."

The story cannot be mangled without losing its wild significance, but, on
further threats, Borrow, to use his own words, "made a motion which the
viper un