But Borrow's most vivid memory of Norman Cross was connected with the viper given to him by an old man, who had rendered it harmless by removing the fangs.

It was the possession of this tame viper that enabled the child of eight--this was Borrow's age at the time--to impress the gypsies that he met soon afterwards, and particularly the boy Ambrose Smith, whom Borrow introduced to the world in _Lavengro_ as Jasper Petulengro.

Borrow's frequent meetings with Petulengro[25] are no doubt many of them mythical.

He was an imaginative writer, and Dr.
Knapp's worst banality is to suggest that he 'invented nothing.' But Petulengro was a very real person, who lived the usual roving gypsy life.

There is no reason to assume otherwise than that Borrow did actually meet him at Norman Cross when he was eight years old, and Ambrose a year younger, and not thirteen as Borrow states.