Hoopsnake (race)
Hoopsnake, Hoop-snake, Hoop Snake; Ouroboros, Tail-Eater; Jörmungandr, The World-Serpent, Midgard-Serpent
Origin: American folklore, perhaps extending into ancient history via the Ouroboros or Jörmungandr symbols.
Contents
Description
"As other serpents crawl upon their bellies, so can this; but he has another method of moving peculiar to his own species, which he always adopts when he is in eager pursuit of his prey; he throws himself into a circle, running rapidly around, advancing like a hoop, with his tail arising and pointed forward in the circle, by which he is always in the ready position of striking. It is observed that they only make use of this method in attacking; for when they flee from their enemy they go upon their bellies, like other serpents. From the above circumstance, peculiar to themselves, they have also derived the appellation of hoop snakes."
— Karl Patterson Schmidt, a letter from 1784
According to folklore, the distinguishing feature of a hoop snake is that it can grasp its tail in its jaws and roll after its prey like a wheel, thus looking somewhat like the ouroboros of Greek mythology, or Tsuchinoko (a legendary fat snake that can roll like a wheel and double jump) in Japan. In one version of the myth, the snake straightens out at the last second, skewering its victim with its venomous tail. The only escape is to hide behind a tree, which receives the deadly blow instead and promptly dies from the poison.
Norse World-Serpent Jörmungandr
In Norse mythology, the Ouroboros appears as the serpent Jörmungandr, one of the three children of Loki and Angrboda, which grew so large that it could encircle the world and grasp its tail in its teeth. In the legends of Ragnar Lodbrok, such as Ragnarssona þáttr, the Geatish king Herraud gives a small lindworm as a gift to his daughter Thora Town-Hart after which it grows into a large serpent which encircles the girl's bower and bites itself in the tail. The serpent is slain by Ragnar Lodbrok who marries Thora. Ragnar later has a son with another woman named Kráka and this son is born with the image of a white snake in one eye. This snake encircled the iris and bit itself in the tail, and the son was named Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye.
It is also a common belief among indigenous people of the tropical lowlands of South America that waters at the edge of the world-disc are encircled by a snake, often an anaconda, biting its own tail.
The Classical and Magickal Ouroboros
An Ouroboros is circular symbol depicting a snake, or less commonly a dragon, swallowing its tail, as an emblem of wholeness or infinity.
Originating in ancient Egyptian iconography, the Ouroboros entered western tradition via Greek and later Roman magical tradition and was adopted as a symbol in Gnosticism and Hermeticism and most notably in alchemy. The Ouroboros appears elsewhere in Egyptian sources, where, like many Egyptian serpent deities, it represents the formless disorder that surrounds the orderly world and is involved in that world's periodic, cyclical renewal. The term derives from Ancient Greek ("tail-eater"). The Ouroboros is often interpreted as a symbol for eternal cyclic renewal or a cycle of life, death and rebirth. The skin-sloughing process of snakes symbolizes the transmigration of souls; the snake biting its own tail is a fertility symbol.
In Gnosticism, a serpent biting its tail symbolized eternity and the soul of the world. The Gnostic Pistis Sophia (c. 400 AD) describes the Ouroboros as a twelve-part dragon surrounding the world with its tail in its mouth.
Keeper Notes
- I'd encountered the "hoopsnake" myself, at least in the form of a variation on the "snipe hunt" practical joke: a prank, in existence in North America as early as the 1840s, in which an unsuspecting newcomer is duped into trying to catch some variety of fabulous and imaginary animal of varying description (generically, a "snipe"); the prank often associated with summer camps and groups such as the Boy Scouts, or in my case played by country boys on "green" newcomers from the city. In the usual version of the prank, the victim is led to an outdoor spot and given instructions for catching the "snipe"; these often include waiting in the dark and holding an empty bag or making noises to attract the creature, while the others involved in the prank then either leave the newcomer alone in the woods to discover the joke. In this variation, the pranksters describe the hoopsnake, warn the victim of the weird and supernatural dangers of encountering the creature, and later run off, and, hidden from a distance, shout "look out, there's a hoopsnake, it's rolling your direction!" "There's another!", and then hurl pebbles past the target of the prank, before shouting "Help, one stung me!", "Run for your life!", and then falling silent, leaving the victim alone in the woods to find his way out.
- The snipe/hoopsnake prank might be used as a setup for encountering something far weirder in the woods.
- Included here for use among the other bizarre folkloric creaturs described in Manly Wade Wellman's "The Desrick on Yandro (fiction)"; some country folk take the story very seriously, and are very afraid of even seeing a hoopsnake, which is supposed to be bad luck; I'm not sure it's supposed to actually be a snake in the usual sense - a hoopsnake is implied to be snake-like, but something a bit more supernatural in quality.
- The Millennium Group uses the Ouroboros as a cyclical symbol of eternity or rebirth.
- The Shub-Niggurath cult might also use the Ouroboros as a fertility symbol.
Associated Mythos Elements
- setting: Folk Mythos
- See also:
