In ancient Greek mythology,
Lamia was the
queen of Libya who became a
child-eating monster.
Aristophanes wrote that the name
Lamia is derived from
λαιμός (throat). Some stories describe the lamia as having the body of a snake from the waist down. This is largely due to the poem
Lamia published by
John Keats in 1819; however, Diodorus Siculus, a Greek historian who published between 60 and 30 BC, describes
Lamia only as a creature with a deformed face.
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| Lamia |
Zeus gave
Lamia the ability to remove her eyes to console herself and forget the loss of her children.
Lamia had been cursed by the goddess
Hera so that she could never close her eyes, thus forcing her to always have visions of her dead children. Furthermore,
Horace writes that the goddess
Hera forced
Lamia to eat her own children. Other versions of the lamia legends associate this (the removal of the eyes) with the gift of prophecy. the Greek
Diodorus wrote nothing about this.
Later, stories about lamiae appeared describing them as similar to
succubi—demon women who seduce their male victims and then feed on their blood. Others describe her as a devourer of children; these stories spread throughout Europe, and mothers often threatened their children with the appearance of the lamia to make them behave.
In modern folklore, lamiae have retained many of their characteristics from antiquity. They are often described as creatures that are half-human, half-snake, greedy, dirty, and not very intelligent. Lamiae are associated with caves and dark places.
