Description
Deep in the mountains in the rain-swept west of Ireland presides the dark, looming figure of Black Murdock. Legends tell of a lost golden crown and a treasure-chest buried by French soldiers somewhere in the mountain. But the legend that haunts the days and nights of Bram Stoker’s narrator is that of the confrontation between Saint Patrick and the King of the Snakes. It gave its name to a part of the mountain called The Snake’s Pass, but now it seems as if the mountain bog, swollen with incessant rainfall, has taken on the attributes of this legendary monster. Unstable as it has become, the bog that is the dominant feature of the landscape is now a “carpet of death”, threatening the lives of all who approach. And yet the King of the Snakes has a human personification, too, in the character of Black Murdock, the evil moneylender, who casts a pall of misery and hatred over all around him.
The Snake’s Pass, first published in 1890, is Bram Stoker’s first novel and the precursor of his most famous creation, Dracula.
