Thomas of Cantimpré [circa 1200-1272 CE] (Liber de natura rerum, Serpents 8.16): Dragon-footed serpents [draconcopedes] are, as the Greeks say, referring to the philosopher Andelmus, great and powerful; these have faces similar to maiden human faces, but end in the body of dragons. Of this kind of serpent it may be believed to have been the serpent by which our first mother Eve was deceived to her own harm and ours: for Bede says that that serpent, which the devil used in the deception of the first parents, had the face of a maiden. And the devil took over the body of the serpent, not as a soul takes over a body, but as a man wears a garment: for the devil and the serpent were not one. He took on the serpent body, I say, by combining or rather applying it to himself, and showed the virgin face of the serpent to a woman only, so that with a like form she might be attracted: for every animal, as the wise man says, loves what is like himself. But he hid the rest of the serpent-like body with the leaves of the trees. But how the devil could have caused the serpent to form articulated words, we certainly do not see; but perhaps from without, and not through the serpent's arteries, he formed the words in the artificial mass of air reverberating. The saints say, however, that the devil could speak through the body of a serpent, just as he once spoke to the deluded Gentiles through prophets and ghosts. But with all due respect to what has been set forth, it is of great interest that the devil should speak through a serpent, which has no arteries and offices to form articulate words, just as he spoke through fanatical priests, who were certainly rational men, unless perhaps we want to say that just as the serpent had a human face, so he had organs and offices arranged to utter, if trained, human voices, just as we see birds imitating human voices in speaking. - [Badke translation/paraphrase]