pythoness

Alternative letter-case form of Pythoness.

A female soothsayer

A female python.

On the fifteenth of January, it was discovered that the pythoness had excluded rather more than a hundred dirty-white, leathery-looking eggs.

The priestess of the oracle of Apollo at Delphi.

The office of Pythoness appears not to have been desirable. Either the emanations from the cavern, or some art of the managers, threw her into real convulsions. Priests entitled prophets led her to the sacred tripod, force being often necessary for that purpose, and held her on it till her frenzy rose to whatever pitch was in their judgement most fit for the occasion.

The unconnected words which the Pythoness screamed out in her madness were arranged into sentences by the attendant priests, who could easily place them in such an order, and fill up the breaks in such a way, as to make them express whatever was most suitable to the interests of the shrine, which was the main object.