But before the nectar could pass his throat, Mohini, the female form of Vishnu, cut off his head. The head, having partaken of some amrit, remained immortal.
It is believed that this immortal head of Rahu occasionally swallows the Sun or the Moon, causing eclipses. When the Sun or Moon comes out through the opening at the neck, the eclipse ends! In the Hindu Astrology, the two nodal points where the lunar orbit intersects the apparent path traced by the Sun in the sky, are called Rahu and Ketu. While Rahu is the snake’s head, Ketu represents the torso of the slain demon.
All of this is very old story. For the latest on head-only snake, let’s go over to Washington where 53 year old Danny Anderson is feeding his horses. Sighting a 5-foot rattle snake slither onto his property, Anderson and his son pin the snake with an irrigation pipe and cut off its head with a shovel.
They hit it several times and in the process the head ends up under the pickup truck. Not the kind to leave litter lying around, Danny Anderson reaches down to pick up the head.
At that moment, the head comes alive, raises itself, does a ‘back flip’ and bites his finger. Ten minutes later with his tongue swollen and the venom, visibly spreading, the man is rushed to a super specialty hospital to get the full series of six shots.
Moving and striking headless snakes are however more common and have even been video taped by people. Biologists suggest that since snakes ‘see’ through their heat sensors, as long as these register an acceptable body temperature, the snake part could have the ability to react. The cold blooded snake would eventually die, only at sundown.
To run around like a headless chicken means to move about in a frenzied manner. But this chicken managed quite well without a head, for an unbelievable 18 months. On September 10th 1945, farmer Lloyd Olsen of Colorado was sent out to the yard by his wife to bring back a chicken.
Olsen failed to completely decapitate the five-and-a-half month old rooster named Mike. The axe missed the jugular vein, leaving one ear and most of the brain stem intact.
The family was aghast to see that Mike was still able to balance on a perch and walk clumsily; He even attempted to preen and crow, although he could do neither.
After the bird did not die, Mr. Olsen decided to save it from the pot. He started to care for the victim of his botched job, feeding him a mixture of milk and water via an eyedropper. At the time of his beheading Mike weighed two and a half pounds, but at the time of his death in March 1947, this had increased to nearly eight!