The hoop snake is a legendary creature popularized by the folk saga of Pecos Bill. Appearing in folklore from the United States, Canada, and Australia, the oldest alleged sightings of hoop snakes appeared in frontier tales from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and British Columbia.
The hoop snake is renowned for its bizarre way of chasing after its prey. According to legend, the snake can grab hold of its tail with its jaws and roll like a wheel after its victims. It is said to kill its prey by stinging it with its poisonous tail. The only way to survive a hoop snake attack, so the tales claim, is to duck behind a tree; however, if the snake strikes the tree its venom is so toxic that the tree will promptly die. Most scientists believe that accounts of the hoop snake are tall tales—incredibly exaggerated accounts created for entertainment. These tales are most likely based on encounters with the American sidewinder or mud snake, which is known to dig the tip of its tail into predators that might pick it up (these snakes, however, are nonvenomous). Others claim the hoop snake is simply a snake eating its own tail.
The earliest documented encounter with an alleged hoop snake was in 1784 by J. F. D. Smyth. He describes a snake that “resembles a black snake” but is “thicker” and more a “darker brown” in “colour.” Smyth then discusses how this snake never bites its victim but rather “has a weapon in its tail, called its sting,” which is a “hard substance” that when it “penetrates the skin … [it] is inevitable and sudden death” (Schmidt 1925).
While he never refers to it as a hoop snake, his description of its shape does seem to parallel later popular folklore. He writes:
As other serpents crawl upon their bellies, so can this; but he has another method of moving peculiar to his own species, which he always adopts when he is in eager pursuit of his prey; he throws himself into a circle, running rapidly around, advancing like a hoop, with his tail arising and pointed forward in the circle, by which he is always in the ready position of striking. It is observed that they only make use of this method in attacking; for when they fly from their enemy they go upon their bellies, like other serpents. From the above circumstance, peculiar to themselves, they have also derived the appellation of hoop snakes. (Schmidt 1925)
Robert Benjamin claims that the hoop snake can “mimic” the sounds of humans by whistling, thus luring humans closer to it. The snake will then coil into a hoop shape and roll after its intended victim.
Kevin Hawk
See also Joint Snake; Two-Headed Snake
Further Reading
Benjamin, Robert. 2008. “The Dreaded Pennsylvania Hoop Snake.” EzineArticles. March 6. http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Dreaded-Pennsylvania-Hoop-Snake&id=1030006. Accessed September 7, 2015.
“Eastern Mud Snake.” 2006. Florida Museum of Natural History. September 14. http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/herpetology/fl-snakes/list/farancia-abacura. Accessed September 7, 2015.
Schmidt, Karl Patterson. 1925. “The Hoop Snake Story: With Some Theories of Its Origin.” Natural History Magazine (January/February): 76–80. http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/htmlsite/master.html?http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/htmlsite/editors_pick/1925_01-02_pick.html. Accessed September 3, 2015