She is half woman and half serpent, and she rules the snakes from a garden under the earth. People tell her story across Anatolia, Kurdistan, Mesopotamia, and Iran.

A young man named Jamasp falls into her garden. She keeps him safe, teaches him the secrets of healing, and lets him go home on one condition: he must never say where she lives.

He keeps his word until a king falls ill and his vizier claims only her flesh can cure him. Jamasp gives her up. She goes to her death knowing how it ends: the vizier drinks the poison, and Jamasp inherits her wisdom.

Families in Mardin and Diyarbakır still hang her portrait, painted on the back of glass, for health, good luck, and protection against the evil eye. So do a few in Brooklyn.