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The story is recorded in both Greek and Latin sources. In the former, the farmer dies reproaching himself "for pitying a scoundrel", while in the version by Phaedrus the snake says that he bit his benefactor "to teach the lesson not to expect a reward from the wicked." The latter sentiment is made the moral in Medieval versions of the fable.
The Snake and the Farmer is a fable attributed to Aesop, of which there are ancient variants and several more from both Europe and India dating from Mediaeval times. The story is classed as Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 285D, and its theme is that a broken friendship cannot be mended. [ 1 ]
In the 1546 edition of the Emblemata by Andrea Alciato the story is modified. There the bird vomits and is told by its parent that it is losing nothing of its own, since all it has eaten was stolen. [2] The fable is used to illustrate the Latin proverb male parta, male dilabuntur (ill-gotten, ill-spent).
The story is told of a fowler out hunting and concludes, 'Thus the man dies, who looks to the stars with drawn-back bow'. [3] The preceding emblem had illustrated the fable of the Astrologer who Fell into a Well and this continues the lesson there of the need to keep one's attention focussed on the things of this world.
The moral drawn in Mediaeval Latin retellings of the fable such as those of Adémar de Chabannes and Romulus Anglicus [7] was that one should learn from the misfortunes of others, but it was also given a political slant by the additional comment that "it is easier to enter the house of a great lord than to get out of it", as William Caxton expressed it in his English version. [8]
Samuel Howitt's print of the fable, published in 1810 The hedgehog and the snake , alternatively titled The snakes and the porcupine , was a fable originated by Laurentius Abstemius in 1490. From the following century it was accepted as one of Aesop's Fables in several European collections.
The moral drawn from the fable by Babrius was that "Brotherly love is the greatest good in life and often lifts the humble higher". In his emblem book Hecatomgraphie (1540), Gilles Corrozet reflected on it that if there can be friendship among strangers, it is even more of a necessity among family members. [4]
Hanuman fetches the herb-bearing mountain, in a print from the Ravi Varma Press, 1910's. Aglaophotis, a herb used for warding off demons, witchcraft, and fever. Fern flower, a magic flower that blooms on the eve of the Summer solstice. It will bring fortune to the person who finds it. (Baltic and Slavic mythology)