The Insanity of Python History

[Fly, you fools, if you value sanity. There is none here.]

They're gone? Alright, let's get started.

What is Python?

Python is derived from the Greek word, Puthōn, which is the historic name of a huge serpent killed by Apollo, and it is from here that our story begins, with the trials of a certain sun god, by the name of Apollo.

The Myth of Puthōn

Who is Puthōn? You sure you want to know? The story of its life is not for the faint of heart. If somebody said it was a happy little tale, if somebody told you it was just an average ordinary snake, not a care in the world, somebody lied. But let me assure you: This, like any story worth telling, is all about a god. That god. The god next door. Apollo. The god Puthōn had hated since before he was even born.

That's him.

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Yeah, that's not very inspiring, is it?

Puthōn was a giant serpent, sometimes weird described as a medieval-like dragon (which is definitely not the description of a serpent, mind you).

Puthōn was the son of Gaia, which made him Apollo's granduncle. To visualise, Puthōn's technical brother, Cronus, had a son with his sister, Rhea, who is also Puthōn's technical sister, named Zeus, who went on to impregnate the goddess and his cousin Leto with Apollo and his sister, Artemis.

Puthōn was actually sent by Zeus' jealous wife, Hera, who has accustomed herself to the fact that Zeus loved having affairs, but remained unwilling to let him bear life through his many polyamorous activities, to ensure that the two embryo gods were never born. He chased Leto around the lands and around the world, which is ironically made out of his mother, to ensure those kids would never see the light of day. Yes, that was pretty messed up. Leto ran and ran and ran and Zeus, who himself had become used to Hera's jealousy, decided to not even help the mother of his two new children. Yeah, you can see why Apollo hated his father.

Puthōn was unsuccessful in the end, and Apollo and Artemis did come out to a very destructive family. Apollo and Artemis were raised to be great warriors (and they were), and when Apollo found out all that Puthōn had done to his mother, he didn't bother to consult Hera, and proceeded to Puthōn's humble abode down at the centre of the earth. Unlike the Journey to the Centre of the Earth, or any of the Jules Verne books really, Apollo's journey was relatively short, and he got to Mount Parnassus, he was beyond enraged to see the serpent happily sleeping at his home, as if without the simplest sense in the world.

When the poor Puthōn came to, he saw Apollo literally trying to kill him, and he decided to run. He ran and he ran and he ran until he got to the oracle of Gaia at Delphi, previously assumed to be his residence. Why he stopped, no one knows. But in the end, he did.

And he proceeded to be killed. Killed until he couldn't be killed no longer. Apollo's first win, and poor Puthōn's ultimate loss. A loss so grave it could never be recuperated. And by the way, Apollo was 4 days old. 4 days. Let that sink in. Not 4 decades, not 4 years, not even 4 months old, 4 days. Yeah. That's a problem, for sure.

At least he got somewhat of a win in the Trials of Apollo, but in the end, that wasn't very helpful, was it?

So what was the point of this. What was the point of reading about poor Puthōn and his terrible fate? Well, it all comes down... to evolution.

The Trials of the Pythons

Pythons were originally called nothing. Then zoologists came along, and there was "Python". A paralyzed French dude by the name of François Marie Daudin named the genus as such in 1803 in one of his later volumes of Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière des reptiles, or for normal people, the Natural History of Reptiles. He was epic, but his choice of names were not that intelligent. Naming a snake after a villainous mythological serpent capable of destruction is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard of, but hey, at least it worked out for François Marie Daudin, who died of tuberculosis in that year, subsequently after his wife suffered the same fate, at an age of less that 30 years old. Forget Pythagoras, this is a guy who knew he was doing.

The Python is apparently stated as both a Genus and a Family. While Wikipedia insists on one page that the Genus was named after the Family, Wikipedia continues to contradict itself, by stating that they were named Pythons, the genus name, prior to their classification as Pythonidae, the family name of these serpents.

While mostly being found in African or South Asian countries, Pythons continue to gain widespread attention due to them being brought and purposefully instated in the Everglades National Park in the United States, something that goes to prove that no animal can be recognised unless it's found in the United States. And that residents of the United States of America are truly dumb people, for the Pythons remain an invasive species, hated on by others, probably because they're foreigners from Burma with no passports.

Monty Python and the Flying Python

Unfortunately, Python didn't get its name from Puthōn or the Python Snakes. That credit goes to Monty Python and the Flying Circus. Monty Python is a British comedy troupe particularly famous for such masterpieces as the Communist Game Show sketch, the Spanish Inquisition sketch and the brilliantly named Camelot song. They excel in taking humour from absurdity, and their comedy is often described as silly and illogical. Nonetheless, they were all the rage back in the 80s. Monty Python caused quite a stir in 1979 due to their film "Monty Python and the Life of Brian", which retold the coming of the Messiah in a series of fast-paced comedy sketches. The film is also the origin of their most well-known song: "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life", which was even played at the London Olympics in 2012 by Monty Python legend Eric Idle to thunderous applause and singalong.