Krait - in Fiction

In Fiction

Kraits have a reputation as deadly snakes and have figured in fiction as such. Rudyard Kipling used a small, sand colored krait as one of the three main villains in his short story "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi". (The other two villains being a pair of black cobras). In another Kipling short story, "The Return of Imray," a servant arrested for murder cheats the rope by stepping on a karait.

Roald Dahl uses the krait as a device in his short story "Poison". A version of "Poison" is shown in Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV series) October 5, 1958 and remade in Tales of the Unexpected (TV series) March 29, 1980. The krait also appears in Frederick Forsyth's short story "There Are No Snakes in Ireland" (referencing Kipling's Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, with the assumption that Kipling may actually have meant the Saw-scaled viper; included in his collection No Comebacks).

It has been argued that the deadly snake in the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" may have been a krait, although it is described in that work as an "Indian swamp adder." (The Russell's Viper has also been considered as a possible culprit.)

In a slightly more oblique reference, the motion picture Snakes on a Plane features a villainous snake smuggler named "Kraitler."

In Dean Koontz's The Good Guy, the hitman assigned to murder one of the protagonists calls himself Krait.

In Guild Wars and its sequel there is a race of snake-like creatures called Krait.

In Mercedes Lackey's The Serpent's Shadow, Maya's father was killed by a krait while living in India.

In the Star Wars: Legacy comic book series, the leader of the New Sith Order is known as Darth Krayt. Though named after the fictional Krayt Dragon, it is possible that the venomous dragon was named after the krait.

In the early computer game Elite, Krait is the model name of a pirate starship. An homage to it is presented in the later game Escape Velocity Override, where a similar type of renegade fighter craft is also named the Krait.

In Ben Bova's book The Precipice: The Asteroid Wars, vol.1, the character Pancho Lane has a 35 cm Metallic blue Krait, named Elly.

In Mohammed Hanif's book A Case of Exploding Mangoes, Ali Shigri sees them and Blind Zainab kills one.

In James Patterson's The 8th Confession kraits are the murder weapons used by a serial killer.

In Philip Caputo's "In the Forest of the Laughing Elephant" krait venom is on the arrow that kills the main character, Lincoln Coombes.