What makes crocodiles even more frightening is the suddenness with which they strike. Most of the time, they appear utterly lethargic, yet they can rouse themselves almost instantly and attack, for short periods, with remarkable speed. Sometimes a lunge will thrust a crocodile partially out of the water until, for a second or so, it seems almost to be standing upright.

Unlike lions, for example, crocodiles can still inspire a sort of primeval terror, yet they do not seem entirely alien to us. The expressions in the eyes of most reptiles are almost impossible for us to read, but those of crocodiles sometimes appear to share a glimmer of human awareness. Female crocodiles care briefly for their young, and according to some observers, crocodiles may even engage in communal hunts. The upturned mouth of a crocodile can appear to be a perpetual smile, but the large teeth that always protrude on the sides give it a sinister aspect.

Crocodiles are closely identified with wetlands and, in consequence, with irrigation and fertility. According to legend, Menes, the first king of Egypt, was hunting when he fell into a swamp. His dogs failed to help him, but a friendly crocodile ferried the monarch to safety on its back. At the place where he arrived in safety, Menes founded the city of Crocopolis, where the crocodile-god Sebek was worshipped. Much the same story was later told of Saint Pachome, who founded a monastic order in Egypt during the third century. He was so beloved of animals that crocodiles would ferry him across the Nile River to whatever destination he might indicate. The Greek historian Herodotus reported that Egyptians in some districts killed and ate crocodiles, but those in others considered the animals sacred. In Crocopolis priests would place a tame crocodile in a temple, and golden ornaments would be placed in its ears and bracelets on its legs. Pilgrims would bring the holy crocodile special offerings to eat, and after death, it would be embalmed and placed in a coffin. Herodotus, who visited the labyrinthine temple containing the remains of crocodiles and kings at Crocopolis, wrote, “Though the pyramids were greater than words can tell, . . . this maze surpasses even the pyramids” (book 2, section 148).

Other mythologies throughout the world reflect admiration for the crocodile and its power. The dragon of Chinese mythology, which appeared to the emperor Fu Hsi out of the Yellow River, resembled a crocodile with its teeth and short legs, though stylized almost beyond recognition. A Muslim legend from Malaysia held that Fatima, daughter of Muhammed, created the first crocodile. In some parts of Java, mothers would traditionally wrap the placenta of their children in leaves and place it in a river as an offering to ancestral spirits that had become crocodiles.

But terror and scorn for the crocodile go at least equally far back in history. In paintings to illustrate The Egyptian Book of the Dead, the goddess Ammut would be shown waiting hungrily to devour those who were found wanting, as a soul was weighed in balance. In this capacity, she had the head of a crocodile, as well as the forepart of a lion and the hind legs of a hippopotamus. Several monsters of legend to whom human sacrifices were made may originally have been crocodiles. In Greek mythology, for example, the Ethiopian maiden Andromeda was chained to a rock to be eaten by such a creature before the hero Perseus saved her. Human sacrifices to crocodiles of people chained beside a lake or river have been widely practiced from Africa to Korea.

The crocodile has been closely associated with magic from time immemorial. In one Egyptian text from the early second millennium B.C., a sorcerer made a wax crocodile and threw it into the Nile River. It immediately grew large and devoured his wife’s lover. Sorcery is always closely linked with deception, and in Western Europe the crocodile has been a symbol of hypocrisy. Bestiaries would report that crocodiles weep as they eat human beings. Naturalist Edward Topsell wrote in 1658 that the crocodile, “to get a man within his danger, he will sob, sigh, and weep, as though he were in extremity, but suddenly he destroyeth him.” Topsell noted that, according to other observers, the crocodile wept after eating a man, much as Judas had cried after betraying Christ (vol. 2, p. 688).

Several cultures, Arabs and some African tribes, for example, have offered accused criminals to crocodiles as a test, and those people who were eaten or bitten were presumed to be guilty. In the Middle Ages, the entrance to Hell was sometimes depicted as a huge jaw filled with teeth, often resembling that of a crocodile. The idea that crocodiles eat only the guilty has persisted into the latter half of the twentieth century among the Turkana people who live around Lake Rudolph in Kenya. When Alistair Graham saw them wading casually into waters filled with crocodiles, he was told by a tribesman, “My conscience is clear; therefore, I am in no danger” (Graham, p. 68).

In the British classic for children Peter Pan (first published in 1904), James M. Barrie created the villain Captain Hook. A hypocritical murderer like the crocodile of legend, the captain is called Hook for an iron claw that has replaced one of his hands. His hand was bitten off by a crocodile, which liked the morsel so much that it has followed Hook ever since, though the beast does not seem to threaten anybody else. The crocodile has also swallowed a clock, and the captain is terrified whenever he hears it tick. Eventually Hook is thrown to the crocodile, the clock stops, and the captain goes contentedly to his death, a bit like the victim of a human sacrifice who believed that to be eaten was an exalted destiny.