A very beautiful legend. Thank you, Sally.

For me serpents are symbols of birth, growth, death and rebirth, but also the deep knowledge of the cosmos, as well as the process of cyclical time.

Regarding vultures, like the sky vulture seen on Gobekli Tepe's Pillar 43, these are ultimate symbols of death and rebirth in the minds of the Neolithic peoples of Anatolia and the Near East. It was the vehicle of the soul, as well as the guide of the soul into the afterlife. Its journey began with the act of excarnation and completed with the soul's entry into the land of the dead, which in the northern hemisphere has always been associated with the northern celestial pole, and the stars that synchronise with its course across a 26,000-year precessional cycle. Those stars, of course, include Deneb in Cygnus and Vega in Lyra, both of which were identified as vultures in Near Eastern, Hellenic and Armenian sky lore.