DALE DRINNON: A novel solution to the mystery of the Welsh flying snakes?

[Welsh gwiber as illustrated on the cover of Karl Shuker's book, which alludes to the creature in its title] Gwiber And Wyverns - The Flying Vipers [Wyvern and Cockatrice from Church, Exeter] Oll Lewis from the CFZ is a font of information on Welsh cryptozoology. He did an excellent blog post a while back on one of the Welsh cryptids named the Gwiber, specifically a variety of flying snake or dragonet of South Glamorgan. Gwibers are reported all over Wales in folklore but it was in Penllyn they are reported more recently in Marie Trevelyn's Folklore and Folkstories of Wales from 1909: '"The woods around Penllyne Castle, Glamorgan, had the reputation of being frequented by winged serpents, and these were the terror of old and young alike. An aged inhabitant of Penllyne, who died a few years ago, said that in his boyhood the winged serpents were described as very beautiful. They were coiled when in repose, and "looked as though they were covered with jewels of all sorts. Some of them had crests sparkling with all the colours of the rainbow." When disturbed, they glided swiftly, "sparkling all over," to their hiding places. When angry, they "flew over people's heads, with outspread wings bright and sometimes with eyes, too, like the feathers in a peacock's tail." He said it was "no old story," invented to "frighten children," but a real fact. His father and uncles had killed some of them, for they were "as bad as foxes for poultry." This old man attributed the extinction of winged serpents to the fact that they were "terrors in the farmyards and coverts."' Oll goes into some depth on the mystery in his post and he did attempt some interviews. His conclusion: the creatures as reported are unlikely to exist. Some facts do stand out from the traditions; one is that a feathered skin from one of these flying serpents was kept by one family for many years. Whatever else might be said, a feathered skin is a real object and feathers necessarily mean the creature was a bird. Another feature is that these creatures could sometimes be seen seeming "Coiled up". Several long-necked birds sleep with the head and neck curled back towards the tail and some long-tailed birds also throw the tail around the front. Furthermore, these flying serpents are often said to have clawed feet and the claws are also said to be poisonous. [Flying Serpent from Deviant Art] 'Gwiber' means 'viper' and is the same as the French 'voivre', from which we derive the term 'wvre' or wyvern. A wyvern is a smallish two-legged and winged dragon, and wyverns are traditional over many parts of Western Europe. They may have their exact counterparts in Eastern Europe in the aitavaras and other creatures that are simultaneously 'dragons' and like barnyard fowl, sometimes described as having tails of fire, some 'firedrakes' and perhaps the Russian firebirds. If this is so, then we seem to have two distinctive populations where the gaudy males are divided by their colouration, a Western branch which is primarily green and an Eastern branch where the males are primarily red. And the Welsh folklore, when speaking of the flying serpents describes their feathers as peacock-like. That does also determine what kind of creature they really are - they are pheasants (peacocks and domestic fowl are also related to pheasants). [Wyvern] Since I had already seen where the anhinga was described as a flying snake because of its long neck, I assumed that the gwiber or wyvern was a sort of a large pheasant with a very long neck and a very long tail. It might also be the same as the cockatrice, which Wikipedia describes as a sort of a fowl with a long lizard-like (snakelike or dragon-like) tail. It is said to be particularly vicious and is said to have a venomous breath (or a venomous bite, or venomous claws, or a lethal gaze); any of those descriptions could be probably taken as awful warnings that people should keep well away from them, but they need not be true: people are always saying any number of perfectly harmless animals are venomous, especially when they are snakes. Believing that the long-necked and long-tailed pheasant was a viper would just about be typical: the flying serpent reports that turned out to be anhingas also insisted on their potent venom. The Welsh flying snakes are said to be quite aggressive and to kill poultry when given a chance. They will also attack travellers and they are said to be roused to fury at the sight of a red cloth. Reports in this general category of flying snakes commonly put the length down as from six to nine feet long. [Pheasants to scale from Wikipedia] The largest kind of pheasant is the Reeve's pheasant, native to China. It has a very long tail and can regularly grow to over six feet long, up to eight feet long. The size is in the right range, and adding a long snake-like neck to such a bird would make it even longer. It is a hardy bird able to stand extremes of cold and heat, and the males are are said to be hostile to humans, dogs, and especially to males of other pheasant types. If they are being raised together, Reeve's cocks must be kept separate from the males of other kinds because of this agressive nature. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reeves%27s_Pheasant [Cock and Hen Reeve's Pheasants] The hen Reeve's pheasant is as large as the male of the common (ring-necked) pheasant and already has a fairly long tail of its own. This could lead to the tale that cockatrices arise from eggs laid by roosters: peasants unfamiliar with the bird might well mistake the hen for the rooster of another species. [Reeve's Pheasant, tail curling up Snakelike] [Reeve's Pheasant Original Range] ['Flying Viper' Pheasant Hypothetical Original range, Biome similar to Reeve's Pheasant in China. Showing Eradication in Central area in early Historical period and Persisting in the Fringelands] I hypothesize that at the beginning of the post-glacial (recent) period, the ancestral long-necked pheasants spread throughout Europe, starting in the southeast but then following the advance of the forests northward until they were spread over most of the area. They were rarer after the establishment of farming and retreated to the wilderness areas. By the time of the Roman empire, they had been extirpated around the mediterranean and the common (ring-necked) pheasants began to be imported from Russia (Scythia) to replace them [indicated by green on the map]. By the Dark Ages they had disappeared in Central Europe and whereas before there were several different colour schemes for the males, in the later Middle Ages and on there were commonly only the green phase in Western Europe and the Red phase in Eastern Europe. They would have died out much sooner except that they became associated with a superstitious dread that made people keep away from them. Reports became more spotty in recent years but they were seen sporadically in the 1800s and possibly early 1900s in England and Wales on the one hand, and in the Baltic countries on the other. I have a contemporary report of "Venomous Flying Snakes" from Novgorod in Russia at the Yahoo group Frontiers-of-Zoology, and I now believe that report to belong in this category. Recent reports also seem to come from the Basque territories in Southern France and Northern Spain. ["Flying Serpent" Longnecked Pheasant Mockup for Possible Appearance in Life] ["Flying Serpent" Pheasant to Scale to Human, Size as Commonly Reported] [Russian Legend of the Firebird, From Wikipedia]