Hoop Snake Hype

By Mark Spitzer

Of all the suspect Ozark malarkey
the hogwash of the hoop snake
has got to be called out

supposedly
there’s a certain serpent up in them hills
which grips its tail in its jaws
forms itself into a circle
then goes rolling at speeds
exceeding sixty miles per hour          (Museum of Hoaxes)
before straightening out
at the last second
and skewering humans
with the deadly stinger
on its tail

of course
there are a few ways to avoid
this type of attack
first documented in
the 1700s                             (Tour in the U.S.A. vol. I, 1784)
then later recounted 
in tales of Paul Bunyon
and Pecos Bill

first
you can dive through
a hoop snake’s hoop
which will cause it to high
tail it away

or secondly
and most commonly
as Vance Randolph described:
       “in most cases 
        this creature pursues some poor hillman
        misses him, and strikes the horn on its tail
        into a growing tree;
        the hoop snake’s horn is deadly poison
        and the tree always dies”        (Ozark Magic and Folklore, 1947)

Otto Rayburn adds to this
the story of Aunt Steller Bonham
who “wus pickin’ blackberries 
     on a bluff above Clabber Crick . . .
     [and] saw a hoop snake rollin’ straight fer her.
     Snakes alive, she wus scairt!
     Hit wus as big ‘round as yer arm
     an’ made a loop th’ size of a bar’l hoop”

that hoop snake   though
      “jist ripped her dress
       with th’ pint of hits tail”
and when she washed that dress
      “th’ pizen in hit turned
       three tubs o’ warsh water
       plumb green”                     (Ozark Country, 1941)

      (bonus fact:
      hoop snake venom
      has also been reported
      to make wood inflate
      to improbable
      proportions)     

Anyway
in the oral tradition of the hill folk
more hoopy hearsay
began going viral;
a phenom which continues
            to this day
     especially in
            chatroom chatter

ie  
South Carolina 2009
when Norma Nichols narrated
how her and her grandma fled
an aggressive
            rotating
                    wheel of a snake
             adding
                   “THEY ARE REAL”

similarly
Vietnam vet Darrell C
swore “a hoop snake stung [his grandpa]
thrashing wheat in Oklahoma”
1917

then there’s Kaijene
whose “grampa died from a bite in 1960”
as well as Wendell Davis recalling
one “the size of a . . . bicycle tire”         (hoaxes.org)

that’s why
back in the thirties
herpetologist Raymond Ditmars
placed “$10,000 in a trust at a New York bank
        as a prize to be given to the first person
        providing evidence of . . . existence”   (snake-facts.weebly.com)

but guess what?
No one brought
a hoop snake in

so let’s just break it down
to the most common denominator
in most of these stories
claiming this snake
is black

            a detail noted
by reptile curator Karl Schmidt
of the Field Museum of Natural History:
       “the habit of the common black snake of eastern North America
        of gliding along at great speed over the tops of bushes
        without descending to the ground
        may have a bearing on the origin of
        the belief in the hoop snake’s
        rolling method of progression”  (Natural History Magazine, 1925)

a fact I can corroborate
having witnessed on the Fourche-LaFave near Bigelow
       a six-foot
       black rat snake
       (Pantherophis obsoletus)
flying down a cliff face
hardly even touching it
            in pursuit of a skittering mole

I won’t go so far   however
as to claim its form was circular;
if anything
           it was a constricting
                               contracting
                   ever flexing
                              letter S
                                
but with every leaping
                     looping
                            lunge for lunch
              coiling and uncoiling
                            while blasting like a lightning flash
                it kept creating
                               an opening/closing O
             
and that’s how this myth     came to exist
in Arkansas and everywhere
where Eve’s apple
is still an issue

          with few inclined
to set the record straight.

---

Mark Spitzer, novelist, poet, essayist, and literary translator, grew up in Minneapolis where he earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Minnesota in 1990. He then earned his master’s in creative writing from the University of Colorado. After living on the road for some time, he found himself in Paris as writer in residence for three years at the bohemian bookstore Shakespeare and company. In 1997 he moved to Louisiana, became assistant editor of the legendary literature journal Exquisite Corpse, and earned an MFA from Louisiana State University. He taught creative writing and literature for five years at Truman State University and is now an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Central Arkansas. Author of more than 25 books, he has published nonfiction fish books, memoirs, novels, poetry collections, plays, articles on creative writing pedagogy, and books of literary translation. Spitzer has also been the official Nebraska state record holder for the yellow bullhead.