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 ...