More on the size of serpents

IN Bk XXV Albertus also tells us that all dragons have incredibly large bodies, commonly as long as forty-five feet. They are happier living in a cold than in a hot climate. He declares too that there is a lizard in India twenty-four feet long (this is corroborated by Pliny in Ch. 39 of his Bk VIII), and in Spain one is found as thick as a man’s leg below the knee. ¹ Solinus, in Ch. 65, adds his testimony: There are serpents so enormous that they will swallow stags whole and other animals of similar bulk. Apart from this, in seeking food, they find their way into every part of the wide Indian Ocean, including islands which are separated by a great distance from the mainland. It is quite clear that in journeying to their goals through such a vast extent of sea they rely on the power which stems from their massive proportions. ² Water-snakes, also, that live in the sea attain a length of thirty feet, according to Pliny, Bk VI, Ch. 23. ³ Volaterranus, in the chapter of Bk XII entitled On the places lately discovered, has it that there exist serpents a mile long, which at a certain time of year devour entire cattle along with their herdsmen. ⁴ In Bk XVI Strabo mentions that in Posidonius you can read of a serpent that was seen on the plain of Macra, whose corpse stretched over an acre of ground, and was so thick that horsemen standing on either side were unable to see each other. Its open jaws were so wide that they could contain a man on horseback. Each scale on its hide was larger than a shield. ⁵ Finally, Donatus, bishop and saint, once spat into the mouth of a dragon and killed it. Eight yoke of oxen could scarcely drag it along to where it was to be burnt. This dragon, relates Sozomenus, would lie in wait on the public highway near a bridge and consume goats, sheep, horses, cattle, and men. ⁶