Fer de lance

A deserted island where the forest floor writhes with the world's most venomous vipers. A fisherman found dead on his boat, its deck awash with his blood. A lighthouse keeper and his family massacred in a nocturnal snake invasion of their isolated cottage home.
What sounds like the script from some tacky, low-budget horror flick may be as much fact as fiction. What's more, these tales have a purpose that goes beyond fireside entertainment. Chilling by design and passed down from fisherman, father to son, the stories perpetuate myths surrounding the forbidden shores of Brazil's Snake Islan…