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Myths and myth-makers: Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology by John Fiske
page 73 of 272 (26%)
with an ash rod around the spot of ground on which a snake is
lying, the animal must die of starvation, being as effectually
imprisoned as Ugolino in the dungeon at Pisa. In Cornwall it
is believed that a blow from an ash stick will instantly kill
any serpent. The ash shares this virtue with the hazel and
fern. A Swedish peasant will tell you that snakes may be
deprived of their venom by a touch with a hazel wand; and when
an ancient Greek had occasion to make his bed in the woods, he
selected fern leaves if possible, in the belief that the smell
of them would drive away poisonous animals.[51]

[51] Kelly, Indo-European Folk-Lore, pp. 147, 183, 186, 193.

But the beneficent character of the lightning appears still
more clearly in another class of myths. To the primitive man
the shaft of light coming down from heaven was typical of the
original descent of fire for the benefit and improvement of
the human race. The Sioux Indians account for the origin of
fire by a myth of unmistakable kinship; they say that "their
first ancestor obtained his fire from the sparks which a
friendly panther struck from the rocks as he scampered up a
stony hill."[52] This panther is obviously the counterpart of
the Aryan bird which drops schamir. But the Aryan imagination
hit upon a far more remarkable conception. The ancient Hindus
obtained fire by a process similar to that employed by Count
Rumford in his experiments on the generation of heat by
friction. They first wound a couple of cords around a pointed
stick in such a way that the unwinding of the one would wind
up the other, and then, placing the point of the stick against
a circular disk of wood, twirled it rapidly by alternate pulls
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