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
Horned Serpent of a Lindorm in Northern Europe, especially in Southern Scandinavia, and most of all as described in folklore in Eastern Denmark (including the provinces lost to Sweden in 1658). There, too, it is a water creature of huge dimensions, while in Southern Sweden it is a huge snake, the sight of which was deadly. This latter characteristic is reminiscent of the basilisk. In Mesopotamian mythology Ningishzida, is sometimes depicted as a serpent with horns. In other depictions, he is shown as human but is accompanied by "bashmu", horned serpents. Ningishzida shares the epithet "ushumgal", "great serpent", with several other Mesopotamian