Snake worship she sold herself to a man named Gonga no Tayu, who (unbeknownst to Sayohime) intended to sacrifice her to the snake deity of his village in place of his own daughter. When presented to the snake, Sayohime read from the Lotus sutra, enabling the deity to achieve enlightenment and shed its monstrous form. The deity then returned Sayohime to the care of her mother. In Australia, various Aboriginal mythologies tell of a huge python, known by a variety of names but universally referred to as the Rainbow Serpent, that was said to have created the landscape, embodied the spirit of
The Great Snake The Great Snake "The Great Snake" or "The Great Serpent" (, lit. "Of the Great Serpent") is a folk tale (the so-called "skaz") of the Ural region of Siberia collected and reworked by Pavel Bazhov. It was first published in the 11th issue of the "Krasnaya Nov" literary magazine in 1936 and later the same year as a part of the collection "Prerevolutionary Folklore of the Urals". It was later released as a part of "The Malachite Casket" collection. The story was translated from Russian into English by Alan Moray Williams in 1944, and by Eve Manning in the 1950s.