Dolphins, Pythons, and Belly-buttons

Things came together the other day, as I listened to Natalie Haynes standing up for Delphi (which presumably had something to with dolphins, I thought).

<stay-tuned>
That's the second thing; Hold your horses – I'm coming to that.  First of all there was Pythian.

</stay-tuned>

Etymonline entry for Python

I had long wondered – though never intensely enough to do anything about it – why people who lived in Delphi were called 'Pythian'.  The thing is, as a Wikipedia article explains, the place originally took its name from its foundation myth, in which Apollo slew a dragon (or serpent – there were no reliable eye-witnesses at the time):

In Greek mythology, Python (Ancient Greek: Πύθων; gen. Πύθωνος) was the serpent, sometimes represented as a medieval-style dragon, living at the center of the Earth, believed by the ancient Greeks to be at Delphi. He was killed by the god Apollo.

...Python, sometimes written Pytho, presided at the Delphic oracle, which existed in the cult center for its mother, Gaia, "Earth" ... Greeks considered the site to be the center of the Earth, represented by a stone, the omphalos or navel, which Python guarded.

Python became ... enemy of the later Olympian deity Apollo, who slew it and took over Python's former home and oracle.... Like many monsters, Python was known as Gaia's son. In turn, Apollo had to eliminate him before he could establish a temple in Delphi.

So the Pythians lived in  Delphi before it was Delphi, and the sacred place was renamed after Apollo bagsied it by killing the child of the previous dedicatee, Gaia. But why Delphi exactly amd what's it got to do with dolphins?

Well, it's all quite simple really. After killing the dragon/serpent Apollo stood awhile ('in uffish thought', probably) and wondered where to get priests for his new shrine:

Delphi was in fact Apollo's chosen land. Soon after his victory over the serpent Python he built an altar in harsh Pvtho. in the midst of a sacred grove. The place was deserted and Apollo was wondering where he would find priests for his new cult when he perceived in the distance on the dark sea a ship manned by some Cretans. Immediately assuming the form of a dolphin,...                                                                          

<parenthesis>
The choice of sea mammal was not entirely fortuitous. Wikipedia says:

In Greek myths, dolphins were seen invariably as helpers of humankind. Dolphins also seem to have been important to the Minoans,...

<tangent author="HD">
You've no doubt been wondering about the acuity of Apollo's eyesight. This Minoan angle explains why – seeing that the sailors were Cretans – Apollo chose the form of a dolphin.
</tangent>

...judging by artistic evidence from the ruined palace at Knossos.... Dolphins are common in Greek mythology, and many coins from Ancient Greece have been found which feature a man, a boy or a deity riding on the back of a dolphin....The Ancient Greeks welcomed dolphins; spotting dolphins riding in a ship's wake was considered a good omen.

</parenthesis>          

...he sped after the ship and leapt on to the deck, to the great terror of the sailors, who were even more terrified when their ship suddenly ceased to obey the oars and, deviating from its course, rounded the Peloponnese, entered the Gulf of Corinth and ran aground on the shores of Crissa. Apollo then reassumed his his [sic]...

<tangent subject="1963 printing technology">
The type for this book was set in the days when people made decisions about line-breaks, and a 'loose' line (one with large spaces between the words) followed a line that ended with  'his'. The typesetter fixed this by starting the following line with a rogue 'his', thinking that no one would notice. Well he should think again – although I must admit I missed it on a first reading and only noticed it when proof-reading an OCR transcript that had different line-breaks.
</tangent>

...divine appearance and told the Cretans his will. 'From now on none of you will again return to your pleasant city. You will see your rich dwellings and your cherished wives no more; but you will guard my temple. You will know the designs of the immortal gods and, by their will, you will be perpetually honoured. You will have in abundance all that the illustrious tribes of men bring to me. And since you first beheld me on the dark sea in the shape of a dolphin, you shall invoke me by the name of the Delphinian.'                                                                                                                  

  New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology

Now we come to the belly-button. What the serpent/dragon was doing to attract Apollo's herpeticidal...

<AI_schmAI>
Google's AI Overview says of my new-coined word (not quite new-coined – there is a rarely used medical term that means 'killing herpes') 'it playfully or erroneously refers to the killing of reptiles or snakes'. Well all I can say to that is PSHAW.                                     </AI_schmAI>

...attentions was guarding the Omphalos – the Earth's navel (and who could object to Gaia's wanting to protect that?). This reminded me etymologically (how else?) of this:

<autobiographical-note date="1972">

In my first year of Spanish...

<old-news type="?">
I may have said before why I had to take up Spanish after leaving school. I'd studied French to A-Level, and started German in the Lower VI^th (or Year 12 as I gather they're calling it nowadays). But Cambridge decreed that – as French and German were so popular as choices for their two-languages course...

<tangent>
On reflection I prefer the requirement (applied I think, by the University of York at the time [or maybe it was Lancaster _{[but another indent would make this unreadable]} for one European or Slavic language and one completely unrelated one. 

</tangent> 

So I had to take up another. For social reasons (cherchez la femme, or in this case busca la chica) I chose Spanish. 

</old-news>

... I sat a translation exam discussing a scholarly debate about whether Adam had a navel. At that stage I didn't know the Spanish for navel (derived from the Greek omphalos – Spanish ombligo). Undeterred, I got by with a bit of scholarly periphrasis: cuerda umbilical.
</autobiographical-note>

Is that the time? Guitar practice calls. 

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