origin of the word Python!
Ovid, Hyginus, Robert Graves, Erwin Rohde, and Karl Kerenyi have all written extensively about the creature and the myths associated with him, but the earliest known mention of the dragon-like beast Python is in the
According to the story, a serpentine monster named Python was terrorizing all of Greece, in pursuit of Leto, a lesser goddess of the dark night sky. Python was a hideous creature whose body was so vast that it could flatten entire acres of cities and fields. Its bite, breath, and presence were poisonous, radiating an evil miasma into the areas around it. The reason for its violence was that Hera was wrathful toward Leto for laying with Zeus, and Hera dictated that Leto would not be allowed to give birth to her twins (Artemis and Apollo) anywhere that the sun shines. Python pursued everywhere that Leto fled, and many smaller islands actually swam away from Leto s efforts to escape to them: the islands both feared the monster s carnage and