ok i saw a quick news clip of this last week but forgot to follow-up on researching it a bit more. here's the news clip: https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/news...int/vi-AAwBdVf
so it seems that every May 1st, Cocullo, a tiny Italian village of less than 300 peeps gets flooded by thousands of more peeps fore the annual Festa dei Serpari or Serpent Festival. they celebrate Saint Domenico who was the protector toothaches and healer of bites (i.e. snake bites) by parading a statue of him through town draped in locally caught snakes. apparently he also cleared the fields of thousands of snakes (like Saint Patrick did).
(actually historians beleive that the tradition goes back to ancient times of when the locals used to worship Angitia - the snake goddess.)
anyways here's some pix. they're a mix of non-venomous colubrids - four-lined, aesculapian, grass and green whip snakes. also some look real sizable!
read more and see more pix here: https://www.thelocal.it/20180502/pic...stival-cocullo
also an old article from 2014 says de-fanged(even tho they are non-venomous): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/ar...al-Snakes.html
anyways the snakes are re-released back into the wild after the festival.
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