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
Lion with a Snake Lion with a Snake Lion with a Snake (French: "Lion au serpent") is an 1832 sculpture by Antoine-Louis Barye. It measures . The original plaster was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1833 and is in the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon. It was cast in bronze using the lost-wax process in 1835 by . The original cast was acquired by Louis Philippe I and - after being exhibited in the Tuileries Gardens from 1836 to 1911 - is now in the Louvre. A stone version is sited in the Tuileries. Another bronze cast was made in 1891 by