Flies and serpents

A Mythconceptions column in 2010 “explained” how the houseflies of today pose no risk to human life [ FT261:25]. Enter the equal and opposite experts, who warn of dire consequences if flies land on your food: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

science/2017/11/24/flies-carry-bacteria-first-thought-warn-scientists/

I am reminded of an occasion in my youth when a fly landed in my soup, and I nonchalantly fished it out and continued eating. Normally I would do no such thing, but this was on a farm where I was eating at a refectory table with a gaggle of American hippies. I couldn’t let such a chance to gross them out pass me by... I don’t remember any unpleasant consequences from this. •

Norwegians are brought up to believe that Midgardsormen, the terrible World-Girdling Serpent of Norse mythology, is a particular Scandinavian construct. I was actually afraid of it when I was little, but then I was afraid of so many things. Until I read SD Tucker’s “Poked by a Pokémon!” [ FT345:55], I was unaware that the Japanese have a similar world-spanning catfish, but the two must surely be related (as Private Eye would put it). Since this trope crops up in two such different and farapart cultures, it is probably part of other mythologies around the world as well. Nils Erik Grande Oslo, Norway