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A Snake I Can Take

My friends and family know that I do not like snakes at all. In fact, I can honestly say that snakes scare me. This fear stems from several incidents in my childhood. The first incident occurred at my great-grandfather's home. Grandaddy Findlay was a cantankerous old man in his 80's. When I was very young, he took me out to the chicken coop and sent me in to collect the eggs. His chicken coop was low and dark. Once inside the coop, I reached into the nest, found an egg, and pulled it out. Unfortunately, this egg was wrapped in the snake who had swallowed it whole. Needless to say, this was a bit traumatic and I have suffered from ophidiophobia (the fear of snakes) since that time. To be honest, I don't even like to touch pictures of snakes in books. I know this is unreasonable, but phobias are irrational.
During the first semester of law school, I missed having time to craft so one of my main goals over the winter break was to spend as much time as possible making things. One of my favorite hobbies is making chain maille jewelry. I love the complexity of patterns that can be made from simple rings. The weave shown below is sometimes called Snake Chain because of the round shape and slinky character. This is the first "snake" that I willingly have held since that fateful day at my great-grandfather's home. Snake chain is also known as Roundmaille. The weave starts as a simple strip of European 4 in 1 which is then zipped up into a round chain. It is a very flexible weave that makes wonderful necklaces.



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  1. NavdivtrJanuary 7, 2018 at 2:04 PM

    This is a good story. I think you are not alone in your ophidiophobia.

    ReplyDelete

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