Among the seven Japanese divinities of good luck, only one was a goddess: Benten, who brough inspiration and talent, wealth and romance to those who honored her. Benten (sometimes called Benzaiten) was also queen of the sea, a dragon woman who swam through her domain with a retinue of white snakes. In her dragon body she protected her devotees from earthquakes by mating with the monstrous snakes who thrashed under the Japanese islands. But she could also wear the form of a lovely human woman, and in this form she was usually portrayed, mounted on a dragon who was both her steed and her paramour.