I got this very old book about snakes from my local library and it's a hoot. There is a chapter about this woman who was able to tame any snake. Eventually she was bitten by a cobra and died. But she said that one time she put a mouse in with one of her pet snakes who had just eaten and the snake didn't eat the mouse so she decided to just leave it in there and see what happened. The snake and the mouse lived quite comfortable together. Each week she would introduce another mouse and the snake would eat the new mouse right away. After quite some time she took the mouse out for a day or two then put it back in and the snake ate it. She repeted this experiment several times with the same results each time.