蛇の道は蛇 ja no michi wa hebi Snakes Follow The Way Of Serpents

The saying plays on two readings of one character, 蛇 read ja, the great serpent, and 蛇 read hebi, the ordinary snake: the great serpent's path, the small snake knows it. The line has meant both the expert who knows the trade and the insider who knows a hidden world. Set a thief to catch a thief is this proverb when the kind is thieves; for rice cakes, the rice-cake shop, when the kind is bakers. Buchanan's 1965 title, Snakes Follow the Way of Serpents, keeps two English words for one animal.

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