Littell's Living Age/Volume 153/Issue 1983/An Eastern Legend

An Eastern Legend.—The most painful thing to endure among the ruins of Palmyra is the want of water. The inhabitants have no other water than that of a hot spring, the water of which has an intense smell of sulphur. It can only be drunk after it has been exposed for twelve hours to the wind in a leather bottle. Yet, however repulsive it might have appeared at first, one gets so accustomed to it that at last the water brought by travellers, even from the "Wild-goat’s Well" (Ain el Woul, half-way between Karatern and Palmyra), appears tasteless. The following legend relates to the sulphurous well of Palmyra, Ain el Ritshen, or the Star Well. Once upon a time a large snake had taken its abode in the well, and was stopping its mouth so that no water could be drawn from it. Solomon, son of David, ordered the animal to leave the place, in order that the people might use the water. The snake replied to the wise king: "Grant me to come out with my whole body, and promise me not to kill me. I have a sun-spot in the middle of my body, and I shall die if anything touches me on that place." When Solomon had given him the required promise, the snake began to wind itself out; it crawled and crawled, but there was no end to it. Its rings already filled the valley, and there was no appearance of a sun-spot yet. Solomon began to be frightened, and he trembled so much that a ring slipped from his finger at the very moment when the mysterious spot appeared at the mouth of the well; the ring fell on that spot, and the snake was broken in two parts. The hind part of the monster remained in the well, and was putrefied in it, so that it became impossible to drink the water. Solomon purified the spring with sulphur, the putrid smell disappeared, but that of sulphur remains till now. The ashes of the front part of the snake burnt by Solomon, dispersed to all the four winds, became another plague, that of the army of springing insects, eg. locusts, etc.