My Hero! (swoon)

That would be St. Patrick, who is said to have run all the snakes out of Ireland and into the sea where they perished.   I have a real phobia about snakes.  As I look back on a long and eventful life, my biggest act of bravery was letting a garter snake my smaller cousins had found curl around my wrist.   Such is my loathing that even a photo of one in, say, National Geographic will make me shudder and slam the magazine shut.    Involuntarily. 

Richie has no fear of snakes.  Once when we were visiting Albuquerque - or Taos? he came across a snake museum.  For a small admission fee, you could enter and admire the snakes which he did.  He got a certificate (xeroxed, you may be sure) for it, too.  Since the building was ramshackle is understatement.  It all looked like one good gust of wind would knock it flat and thus all of the snakes in it would be freed.  No thank, you.  I repaired to a nearby bar, closed the door behind me and had a beer. 

But it turns out that my hero worship of good St. Patrick was misinformed.  To be fair, so is the generally-accepted belief in Ireland and elsewhere that St. Patrick ran them off.  There have never been snakes in Ireland!

Ireland, 100 million years ago, when snakes had appeared elsewhere, was under the ocean.  Ireland only emerged and thawed some 15,000 yeas ago.  But due to the fact that Ireland is an island, the snakes haven't been tough enough to survive coming in by sea.   

Other lands that are snake-free (and that's a damned good thing) are New Zealand, Iceland, Greenland, Antarctica.  

"Success to bold St. Patty's fist
He was a saint so clever
He gave the snakes and toads a twist
And banished them forever! "  

Yeah, right!