The Yuxa embodies the Tatar belief that a serpent which lives long enough passes through a ladder of transformations — from common snake to the great dragon and, in this branch of the tradition, to a being able to take the shape of an exquisitely beautiful woman. In that guise the yuxa insinuates herself into human society and marries an unsuspecting man, whose strength and life she quietly consumes; the deception is undone only when some serpentine sign betrays her — a shape that will not hold, a coldness, a mark upon the body — after which she must be driven off or destroyed. She is a Volga Tatar version of the wide Turkic figure of the shape-shifting ancient snake, a warning myth about beauty that conceals a devouring nature.