Woman marries snake

A woman who fell in love with a snake has reportedly married the reptile at a traditional Hindu wedding celebrated by 2,000 guests in India.

The Press Trust of India says priests have chanted mantras to seal the union but the cobra failed to come out of a nearby ant hill where it lives.

A brass replica snake stood in for the hesitant groom.

The cobra is the world's largest venomous snake, which can grow up to five metres long.

The 30-year-old bride, Bimbala Das, said: "Though snakes cannot speak nor understand, we communicate in a peculiar way".

"Whenever I put milk near the ant hill where the cobra lives, it always comes out to drink.

"I always get to see it every time I go near the ant hill. It has never harmed me."

Villagers welcomed the wedding in the belief it would bring good fortune and laid on a feast for the big day.

Snakes, particularly the king cobra, are venerated in India as religious symbols worn by Lord Shiva, the god of destruction.

Ms Das, from a lower caste, has converted to the animal-loving vegetarian Vaishnav sect, whose local elders gave her permission to marry the cobra.

Her mother, Dyuti Bhoi, says she is happy about the marriage.

"Bimbala was ill," she told a local TV channel.

"We had no money to treat her, then she started offering milk to the snake ... she was cured.

"That made her fall in love."

Ms Das has moved into a hut built close to the ant hill since the wedding.

Earlier this year, a tribal girl was married off to a dog on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar.