SOURCE: "The Were-Snake" (Weird Tales, September 1925) by Frank Belknap Long

DESCRIPTION: "Its doglike head was covered with scales, and a long, reptilian tongue protruded from between its black, bulbous lips. Its eye in profile seemed large and gray; but the tunnel-light had glazed it, and it no longer glittered. It was quite hopeless from a sane or human point of view, and when I raised my arm in a gesture of despair and fury it hissed, and spat at me..."

PLOT: A man spends a night in a Babylonian ruin and encounters the creature that inspired the myths of Ishtar. This goddess of death was said to be so terrible and beauiful men came from the desert to be sacrificed to her. The creature's eyes glow in the dark and have an insect quality to them. When the thing carries off Miss Beardsley, leaving a trail of slug-like slime, the narrator follows. Bullets are useless against Ishtar but a sharp rock acts as a knife and the man cuts off her head. In the morning a woman's decapitated body and the head of a cobra are found.

WEREWOLF FACTS: The legends suggest that the body of Ishtar comes from an earthly woman who transforms into her serpent self.

INTERESTING FACTS: Long may have been inspired both mythology and A. Merritt's Snake Mother  from The Face in the Abyss (1923). Of course Merritt's snake woman is not evil while Long's creature is totally loathsome. This story is written in a typical WT style with elevated horror is not to everyone's taste. I enjoy it.