Vipera ursinii macrops

By Boris Mišić

I always loved snakes. I always dreamed of snakes.

From childhood, I was drawn to those strange and powerful creatures. I felt disgust at the panicked fear my fellow villagers — and most other people — showed whenever they encountered a snake. And yet they swore by their love of nature, their love of the mountain; they swore they would be Dinarans to the grave, that nothing could shake their devotion to Dinara. I hated their hypocrisy. How can you love the mountain and nature, and at the same time hate a creature that is the very essence of nature, the very spirit of the mountain? A being that is one with the rock, with the stone, with the grey slabs of limestone, with the endless meadows and grasses and the barren Dinaric limestone wilderness? Is there anything truer, anything more magnificent, than the idea that the life‑force of the Dinarides is embodied in a snake? Could they not see the divine strength and power of nature in the perfect simplicity of that body, shaped so completely by the world it lives in?

Still, to be fair, even among those creatures there was a hierarchy, just as there was in the pantheon of ancient gods. I was never drawn to the non‑venomous ones — the whip snakes, the grass snakes, the field snakes.

The venomous ones were my passion — relentless predators with lethal, hypnotic eyes, deadly fangs, and dark markings running the length of their bodies.

Years passed, and my fascination with the masters of the Dinarides never faded, but there were fewer of them. Ignorant people killed them out of fear, or greed, or sheer spite. The cutting of forests, the burning of meadows, the wild dumps that sprang up everywhere — all of it shrank and destroyed their habitat. And the last war that swept through here, scattering shells and minefields even across the harshest ridges, did its share of damage as well.

At a time when it seemed no one cared anymore, I was overjoyed to receive a call from the well‑known herpetologist Professor Kukolj, asking me to guide him on a tour through the Bosnian mountain of Jadovnik, which stretches northeast of Dinara, from Drvar toward Grahovo. The professor hoped that on that mountain — a high limestone ridge — he might find potential habitats of the exceptionally rare viper, the mountain yellow‑ring. Word of my love for snakes, my knowledge of them, and my familiarity with the terrain of the Dinaric mountains had reached him, and he offered me a job I accepted with pleasure.

The mountain yellow‑ring (Vipera ursinii macrops) was the snake I was obsessed with, so my wishes and the professor’s plans aligned perfectly. If you look for literature on the yellow‑ring, you won’t find much worth noting: a small snake, barely half a metre long, with venom no stronger than a bee sting, far weaker than that of its viper relatives. Thick‑bodied and yellowish, marked with black patterns, narrow‑headed, it earned its name from the way it coils into a perfect yellow circle while basking in the sun. It lives on high, dry mountain meadows, above eleven hundred metres.

Theory was one thing, practice something else entirely. I caught horned vipers like bugs, and there was no shortage of adders either, but this small, barely venomous little snake kept slipping away from me. I had seen it in the wild only once — on the Kamešnica crags, in a stone‑strewn meadow high, high above sea level; that time, and never again. I felt almost a kind of awe, a sort of religious rapture, as I watched — hypnotized — the sun’s rays stroke that coiled yellow circle resting in the grass… and in that moment a thought came to me, a feeling, that those two yellow discs — the one above in the sky, and the one below in the grass — were one… and that together they were part of… everything. I tried to catch that living disc of sunlight, but the snake, surprisingly quick, shifted from torpor to action and darted under a stone. After that, I abandoned everything else, the more familiar and the more dangerous snakes alike; I had to see this once again, had to find it at any cost. That’s why Kukolj’s invitation came as if sent from heaven.

The professor was a tall, thin, wiry man. I liked him — he didn’t talk much, just as I didn’t, only as much as was necessary for daily life and for the undertaking we had set out on. He wasn’t feeble, and I was glad of that. It made my job much easier to have in front of me not an office rat, but a man for whom scrambling through ravines and mountain wilderness was nothing strange.

During the first few days, while we were combing the Grahovo side of Jadovnik, I felt as if I were in paradise. Just the two of us, and the wilderness. Mountain air, stone, limestone, snakes — what more could a man possibly want?

We found snakes, mostly horned vipers — quick‑bodied and full of venom — but there was no sign of the yellow one. In this part of the mountain, full of dry, high meadows cut through with rock and stone, we placed our greatest hopes. I noticed the first traces of disappointment on the professor’s face, though at first glance he kept himself reserved. I must admit that unease began to creep into me as well. If the yellow‑ring still existed anywhere beyond the already recorded habitats, it had to be here.

In the evenings, exhausted and worn out, we returned to our base — a small mountain village beneath Jadovnik, Zebe — to our equally silent and weary hosts. I understood them; the war had swept through here, and life was hard and monotonous. Personally, that suited me. I didn’t like human company — at least not too much of it, and not the overly talkative kind. I am happiest when I am with snakes, when I listen to the silence of the harsh limestone cliffs and watch the deadly, mesmerizing patterns of the creatures for whose sake we were cast out of the Garden of Eden… creatures to which we are inseparably bound, whose spirit and raw strength are etched forever into our subconscious. For when I was with snakes, I felt closest to the otherworldly. I felt that they were the gateways between worlds and dimensions, and that if one day I managed to understand their language, I would finally overcome that last barrier that would free me from humanness and open my sight to some new world, unimaginable to humankind.

I wouldn’t have regretted it. I didn’t like people anyway, and I doubted I ever would.

In the second week we began exploring the Drvar side of Jadovnik, the more forested side.

That’s when the horror began.

The scale of nature’s destruction was staggering. Of the once vast forests — almost primeval — only shadows and pitiful remnants remained. The giant beeches and firs could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Before my eyes stretched scenes of terrifying barrenness; the former primeval hills were now filled with… emptiness. Timber tycoons from Herzegovina had plundered the mountain’s forest wealth, and I felt a helpless rage in the face of such… desecration. The forest had survived only beneath the highest ridges, on the steep slopes where machinery could not easily reach.

Professor Kukolj gently placed a hand on my shoulder, and for the first time I saw an emotion in his eyes. He understood my pain.

When we crossed to the other side, the Yellow Man began to follow us.

I noticed him on the very first day. His face was unusually pale, an unhealthy yellowish colour. His eyes… like a snake’s — hypnotic, icy slits. A fox‑like snout, a ragged forester’s coat and trousers, and heavy peasant boots. Once I even saw his hands — the same sickly yellow as his face, streaked with dark blotches. I had never seen anyone like him, though God is my witness, I’ve met all kinds of odd characters in my wanderings through the Dinarides. I called him the Yellow Man, although I had no idea whether he was even a man at all — whether he could speak, communicate, or what his intentions were.

He followed us step for step. Far enough that I couldn’t catch him, yet close enough to keep us constantly in his sight. I set traps for him — every kind I knew, everything I had learned from hunters and foresters — but nothing worked. He always slipped away. He was uncatchable. I couldn’t understand what he wanted from us, but at least he caused no harm and showed no sign of aggressive intent. So, for the time being, I decided not to mention him to the professor.

As for our search for the mountain yellow‑ring, everything pointed to failure. We saw only a few adders; there weren’t even other snakes around, as if they had been driven off by the logging, the roaring and vibrations of the machines, and the noise of people. Emptiness. It was as if the mountain was dead.

But the apparent calm didn’t last long. Trouble began.

We witnessed the death of a timberman who was crushed by a falling log. The professor was deeply shaken — he wasn’t used to seeing bodies smashed and mangled. And while the man was dying, I saw, in the distance, the grinning face of the Yellow Man. I had no proof he was responsible for the accident, but the joy I saw on that repulsive face, in those snake‑like eyes, stirred my suspicions.

The second death came two days later. I spotted a small group of hikers too late, and from the ridge where the professor and I stood, I shouted and waved, trying to warn them away from the path that led straight into a minefield. On the opposite ridge, the Yellow Man watched us with those serpent eyes. I had the feeling that my words were being carried off by the wind, that his very gaze was enough to smother them, to freeze them, to trap them in the air. One hiker was killed. At last, I managed to break through that veil of hypnosis and stop the others. Many hours later, the Mountain Rescue Service would pull them out. When I looked back toward the opposite ridge, the Yellow Man was gone.

All of it was too much for Professor Kukolj. He was an outdoorsman, but even so, he wasn’t accustomed to such brutal deaths. The next day he decided to stop the research — he concluded there was no reliable evidence that any living specimens of the mountain yellow‑ring still existed on Jadovnik. He paid me and said his goodbyes. I knew I would never see him again, despite the praise he offered.

I should have left then as well. I should have, but I didn’t. I don’t know why I stayed. I decided to spend one more night in Zebe, and the next day comb through Jadovnik once more, hoping I would find the yellow‑ring… or at least the Yellow Man. I sensed he might give me the answers I was looking for.

Exhausted and worn out, I fell asleep in the village like a child. But something primal and ancient was calling to me from the depths, and I saw the face of the Yellow Man. That snout finally moved, and for the first time I heard the words… he spoke.

“You want to find the yellow‑ring at last? The Sun‑snake? Then come tomorrow at noon, when the sun is strongest, in the meadow below Lisina.”

It was nonsense, of course — what else could it be? Just my tired mind playing tricks on me, conjuring images that slipped into my dreams. Lisina is the highest peak of Jadovnik, and climbing to it would take hours of effort. A normal man would have packed up and gone home, giving no weight to such mad dreams.

A normal man, yes…

The next day at noon, I stood drenched in sweat, with blisters on my feet and hands, on the stony meadow just below the very summit of Jadovnik. The village looked tiny far below, beneath the mountain, and above me was the sun — and the sky, which I felt I could almost touch.

That’s when I saw the snake.

It was small, but beautiful — a thick, yellowish body with dark, square markings, a narrow head, and intelligent eyes that watched me calmly. It curled into a circle, and my breath nearly stopped when the sun’s rays melted into its skin.

I was overjoyed! I had finally found it — finally — and now, deservedly, the glory would be mine, not that of some useless little professor!

I noticed the Yellow Man too late. I was absorbed by the snake — which had begun, unexpectedly, to grow before my eyes, to swell in size. The more it exposed itself to the sun’s rays, the more it seemed to expand. Something unbelievable was happening right in front of me.

“You won’t bring them here anymore… two‑legged creature!” hissed the voice of the Yellow Man. “Never again. Look… look at the sun!”

I had no strength to resist that voice. I looked into the sun, and my pupils sank into that blinding yellow… while the snake around me grew and grew, until it reached such gigantic proportions that it blotted out the entire mountain and the Yellow Man from my sight. And then its body merged completely with the sun’s rays, and I understood — as I screamed, losing my vision — that all those creatures, even the smallest snakes, were part of the One, the blood of the Ancient, the blood of the Great Serpent that had swum through the Cosmos for millennia, birthing stars and planets; that its eyes had burned through the Sun long before we ever existed; and that we are the intruders here, not them.

Do you like happy endings? This story has one.

I went blind — oh yes, completely, permanently blind, after staring at the sun for too long. But some inner eye opened in me, and I became fully aware of the world around me. Even without physical sight, I walked the mountain with ease, found food, never lost the trail, never fell off a cliff or wandered into a minefield… surprising, isn’t it?

Yes, after the accident — if it can even be called that — I stayed on Jadovnik. I built myself a hut on the mountain. I rarely go down to the village; up here I have everything I need. People, as I’ve already told you, I never liked anyway, so I didn’t miss them. And I wasn’t lacking for company. The Yellow Man, true, I never saw or heard again. But my favourite companions were there — the snakes. The hut was full of them (now you understand why the villagers never visit me, don’t you?). All kinds: vipers, adders, harmless species, and my beloved mountain yellow‑rings. I recognized them by the texture of their skin, by the shape of their heads, by the pattern of their markings — markings I couldn’t see but could feel. They never bit me, never showed the slightest aggression. I knew they wouldn’t.

I had paid the price — I had given my sight to the Sun and to the Sun‑snake, and I had passed through the gate. I had finally found what I had been searching for my whole life. I was now in their world, where I would remain forever. Returning to the world of humans was neither possible nor desired.

Rock, stone, meadows, mountain air, fresh mornings and nights… and snakes. What more could a man wish for to be happy?