4173 – Adders bead

Physical description:

Small clear glass bead with two orange stripes and a zigzag line between them.

Museum classification:

Protection

Size:

18mm diameter 8mm

Information:

ADDERS BEAD

This bead was designed by Rory Te’ Tigo and made specially for the Museum. It is based on an Adders Bead or Glain Neidr (Glass Serpent) which was found near Boscawen-un Stone Circle at St Buryan in Cornwall and then used in traditional folk magic for good fortune and healing.

The original bead is now in Penlee House Gallery and Museum in Penzance. There are also similar beads in the National Museum of Wales. They are masterpieces of ancient glass-making, but they were used in folk magic because it was thought that they were made by snakes – probably because many of them have wavy snake-like patterns within the glass.

In fact the zig-zag line on this particular bead is remarkably similar to the markings on an adder.

These beads were described by William Camden in his book Britannia, first published in 1586:

“In most parts of Wales, and throughout all Scotland, and in Cornwall, we find it a common opinion of the vulgar [i.e. ordinary people, not the educated elite like Camden], that about Midsummer-Eve it is usual for Snakes to meet in companies; and that, by joining heads together, and hissing, a kind of bubble is formed, which the rest, by continual hissing, blow on till it hardens, and resembles a glass-ring, which whoever finds (as some old women and children are persuaded) shall prosper in all his undertakings.”

According to William Camden, these beads were usually green or blue, with a wavy pattern of red or white within them.

There is another account of them by Richard Carew in his Survey of Cornwall (1603):

“The Country people have a persuasion, that the Snakes here breathing upon a hazel wand, produce a stone-ring of blue colour, in which there appears the yellow figure of a Snake, and that beasts bit and envenomed, being given some water to drink, wherein this stone has been infused, will perfectly recover of the poison.”

Another Cornish name for an Adders Bead is Mylpryf or Milpreve, which means “Thousand Snakes”, and probably refers to the large number of adders that (it was thought) had to gather together to provide the right conditions for the bead to be created.

However, apparently some Cornish people could make a sleeping adder produce the bead by saying a charm and striking the snake with a hazel wand (according to a letter quoted in William Borlase’s book Antiquities of the County of Cornwall (1758)).

In Scotland the name is Gloine nan Druidh, which means “Druid’s Glass”. The Roman naturalist Pliny saw Druids wearing egg-shaped stones that were thought to have been created by snakes from their saliva. He also mentions that someone who was caught using one of these stones as an amulet to help him win a court case was executed for witchcraft. However, they were probably fossils, not beads.

Here in the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic we have a bead that may be an Adders Bead. The text describing it, probably written by Gerald Gardner, a leading figure in the Modern Witchcraft movement, says that it is an ancient bead amulet “for extreme good luck”. It is made of glass that has aged to a beautiful opal-like shine, and at some point someone has scratched a spiral into its surface.

Throughout history snakes have been very important in many spiritual and magical belief systems. The poisonous bite that some snakes have gives them a mysterious and sinister power – but also means that their magical energy can be called on for protection. The way they shed their skins, breaking free of the dead skin as if reborn, makes them symbols of spiritual transformation.

It is rare to see an adder, but they sometimes bask on footpaths, and encountering one is a very exciting experience. Their zig-zag markings make them one of the most beautiful snakes in the world. Male adders are silver-grey with a black zig-zag, and female adders are gold with a zig-zag the colour of bracken in autumn.

Adders often gather together in large numbers for their mating rituals, which involve the males twisting round each other in dance-like combats.

Although these beads were thought to have been created by snakes, they were also magical because they were found at ancient sites such as burial mounds – places that magical practitioners often used to contact Ancestral Spirits and the Spirits of Nature. Finding these beads was not simply a lucky accident, but was often accompanied by some kind of visionary experience.

King James I described this in his book about witchcraft Daemonologie:

“Witches have gone to death with that confession, that they have been transported with the Phairie [Fairies] to such a hill, which opening, they went in, and there saw a fair Queen, who gave them a stone that had sundry [various] virtues.”

We may not know what the glass-makers of ancient times intended when they created them, but Adders Beads have become an eerie and beautiful expression of the magical connections between us, the Natural World and the World of Spirit.

Resource:

Object

Materials:

Glass

Copyright ownership:

MWM

ADDERS BEAD

This bead was designed by Rory Te’ Tigo and made specially for the Museum. It is based on an Adders Bead or Glain Neidr (Glass Serpent) which was found near Boscawen-un Stone Circle at St Buryan in Cornwall and then used in traditional folk magic for good fortune and healing.

The original bead is now in Penlee House Gallery and Museum in Penzance. There are also similar beads in the National Museum of Wales. They are masterpieces of ancient glass-making, but they were used in folk magic because it was thought that they were made by snakes – probably because many of them have wavy snake-like patterns within the glass.

In fact the zig-zag line on this particular bead is remarkably similar to the markings on an adder.

These beads were described by William Camden in his book Britannia, first published in 1586:

“In most parts of Wales, and throughout all Scotland, and in Cornwall, we find it a common opinion of the vulgar [i.e. ordinary people, not the educated elite like Camden], that about Midsummer-Eve it is usual for Snakes to meet in companies; and that, by joining heads together, and hissing, a kind of bubble is formed, which the rest, by continual hissing, blow on till it hardens, and resembles a glass-ring, which whoever finds (as some old women and children are persuaded) shall prosper in all his undertakings.”

According to William Camden, these beads were usually green or blue, with a wavy pattern of red or white within them.

There is another account of them by Richard Carew in his Survey of Cornwall (1603):

“The Country people have a persuasion, that the Snakes here breathing upon a hazel wand, produce a stone-ring of blue colour, in which there appears the yellow figure of a Snake, and that beasts bit and envenomed, being given some water to drink, wherein this stone has been infused, will perfectly recover of the poison.”

Another Cornish name for an Adders Bead is Mylpryf or Milpreve, which means “Thousand Snakes”, and probably refers to the large number of adders that (it was thought) had to gather together to provide the right conditions for the bead to be created.

However, apparently some Cornish people could make a sleeping adder produce the bead by saying a charm and striking the snake with a hazel wand (according to a letter quoted in William Borlase’s book Antiquities of the County of Cornwall (1758)).

In Scotland the name is Gloine nan Druidh, which means “Druid’s Glass”. The Roman naturalist Pliny saw Druids wearing egg-shaped stones that were thought to have been created by snakes from their saliva. He also mentions that someone who was caught using one of these stones as an amulet to help him win a court case was executed for witchcraft. However, they were probably fossils, not beads.

Here in the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic we have a bead that may be an Adders Bead. The text describing it, probably written by Gerald Gardner, a leading figure in the Modern Witchcraft movement, says that it is an ancient bead amulet “for extreme good luck”. It is made of glass that has aged to a beautiful opal-like shine, and at some point someone has scratched a spiral into its surface.

Throughout history snakes have been very important in many spiritual and magical belief systems. The poisonous bite that some snakes have gives them a mysterious and sinister power – but also means that their magical energy can be called on for protection. The way they shed their skins, breaking free of the dead skin as if reborn, makes them symbols of spiritual transformation.

It is rare to see an adder, but they sometimes bask on footpaths, and encountering one is a very exciting experience. Their zig-zag markings make them one of the most beautiful snakes in the world. Male adders are silver-grey with a black zig-zag, and female adders are gold with a zig-zag the colour of bracken in autumn.

Adders often gather together in large numbers for their mating rituals, which involve the males twisting round each other in dance-like combats.

Although these beads were thought to have been created by snakes, they were also magical because they were found at ancient sites such as burial mounds – places that magical practitioners often used to contact Ancestral Spirits and the Spirits of Nature. Finding these beads was not simply a lucky accident, but was often accompanied by some kind of visionary experience.

King James I described this in his book about witchcraft Daemonologie:

“Witches have gone to death with that confession, that they have been transported with the Phairie [Fairies] to such a hill, which opening, they went in, and there saw a fair Queen, who gave them a stone that had sundry [various] virtues.”

We may not know what the glass-makers of ancient times intended when they created them, but Adders Beads have become an eerie and beautiful expression of the magical connections between us, the Natural World and the World of Spirit.