Lamia

In ancient Greek mythology, Lamia (Greek: Λάμια) was a beautiful queen of Libya who became a child-eating daemon. Aristophanes claimed her name derived from the Greek word for gullet (λαιμός; laimos), referring to her habit of devouring children.Aristophanes, The Wasps, 1177.
Some accounts say she has a serpent's tail below the waist.Compare Typhon (Typhoeus), Echidna, the Gigantes and other archaic chthonic bogeys. This popular description of her is largely due Lamia, a poem by John Keats published in 1819.Keats, "Lamia" Antoninus Liberalis uses Lamia as an alternate name for the serpentine drakaina Sybaris; however, Diodorus Siculus describes her as having nothing more than a distorted face.Diodorus Siculus, Library of History xx.41.
Later traditions referred to many lamiae; these were folkloric monsters similar to vampires and succubi that seduced young men and then fed on their blood.Information on Lamia from the Online Encyclopedia
Zeus then gave her the ability to remove her eyes. The purpose of this ability is unclear in Diodorus, but other versions state Lamia's ability to remove her eyes came with the gift of prophecy. Zeus did this to appease Lamia in her grief over the loss of her children.Bell, Women of Classical Mythology, drawing upon Diodorus Siculus 22.41; Suidas 'Lamia'; Plutarch 'On Being a Busy-Body' 2; Scholiast on Aristophanes' Peace 757; Eustathius on Odyssey 1714) 
In later stories, Lamia was cursed with the inability to close her eyes so that she would always obsess over the image of her dead children. Some accounts (see Horace, below) say Hera forced Lamia to devour her own children. Myths variously describe Lamia's monstrous (occasionally serpentine) appearance as a result of either Hera's wrath, the pain of grief, the madness that drove her to murder, or - in some rare versions - a natural result of being Hecate's daughter.Odyssey12.124 and scholia, noted by Karl Kerenyi, Gods of the Greeks 1951:38 note 71.
Horace, in Ars Poetica (l.340) imagines the impossibility of retrieving the living children she has eaten:
Alexander Pope translates the line:
Stesichorus identifies Lamia as the mother of Scylla, by Phorcys.Stesichorus Frag 220, Eustathius on Homer's Odyssey 1714. This might be a conflation of Lamia with the sea goddess Ceto, traditionally Phorcys's wife and mother of Scylla. Further passing references to Lamia were made by Strabo (i.II.8) and Aristotle (Ethics vii.5). Other sources cite Triton as having fathered Scylla by Lamia. Antoninus Liberalis identifies the dragon Sybaris with Lamia, another conflation.
==Interpretations==
Mothers throughout Europe used to threaten their children with the story of Lamia.Tertullian, Against Valentinius (ch.iii) Leinweber states, "She became a kind of fairy-tale figure, used by mothers and nannies to induce good behavior among children."Leinweber 1994:77.
Many lurid details were conjured up by later writers, assembled in the Suda, expanded upon in Renaissance poetry and collected in Bulfinch and in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: Lamia was envious of other mothers and ate their children. She was usually female, but Aristophanes suggests a hermaphroditic phallus, perhaps simply for monstrosity's sake.Aristophanes, Peace, l..758 Leinweber notes, "By the time of Apuleius, not only were Lamia characteristics liberally mixed into popular notions of sorcery, but at some level the very names were interchangeable."Leinweber 1994:78 Nicolas K. Kiessling compared the lamia with the medieval succubus and Grendel in Beowulf.See Nicolas K. Kiessling, "Grendel: A New Aspect" Modern Philology 65.3 (February 1968:191–201.
Apuleius, in The Golden Ass, describes the witch Meroe and her sister as lamiae:The Elizabethan translator William Adlington rendered lamiae as "hags", obscuring the reference for generations of readers. ([Apuleius], Metamorphoses [Harvard University Press] 1989 (Metamorphoses is more familiar to English-language readers as The Golden Ass.). "The three major enchantresses of the novel — Meroe, Panthia and Pamphylia — also reveal many vampiric qualities generally associated with Lamiae," David Walter Leinweber has noticed.Leinweber, "Witchcraft and Lamiae in 'The Golden Ass'" Folklore 105 (1994:77–82). 
[[File:Lamia Waterhouse.jpg|upright|thumb|Lamia (second version) by[John William Waterhouse (1909); note the snakeskin on her lap.]]
One interpretation posits the Lamia may have been a seductress, as in Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana, where the philosopher Apollonius reveals to the young bridegroom, Menippus, his hastily-married wife is really a lamia, planning to devour him.Leinweber 1994:77f Some harlots were named "Lamia".Kerényi 1951 p 40. The connection between Demetrius Poliorcetes and the courtesan Lamia was notorious.See Plutarch, Life of Demetrius xxv.9See Claudius Aelianus, Varia Historia XII.xvii.1See Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae III.lix.29. In the painting by Herbert James Draper (1909, illustration above), the Lamia who moodily watches the serpent on her forearm appears to represent a hetaera. Although the lower body of Draper's Lamia is human, he alludes to her serpentine history by draping a shed snake skin about her waist. In Renaissance emblems, Lamia has the body of a serpent and the breasts and head of a woman, like the image of hypocrisy.
 
Christian writers warned against the seductive potential of lamiae. In his 9th-century treatise on divorce, Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, listed lamiae among the supernatural dangers that threatened marriages, and identified them with geniciales feminae,Hincmar, De divortio|De divortio Lotharii ("On Lothar's divorce"), XV Interrogatio, MGH Concilia 4 Supplementum, 205, as cited by Bernadotte Filotas, Pagan Survivals, Superstitions and Popular Cultures in Early Medieval Pastoral Literature (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2005, p. 305. female reproductive spirits.In his 1628 Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, Du Cange made note of the geniciales feminae, and associated them with words pertaining to generation and genitalia; entry online.
John Keats described the Lamia in Lamia and Other Poems, presenting a description of the various colors of Lamia that was based on Burton's in The Anatomy of Melancholy.Keats made a note to this effect at the end of the first page in the fair copy he made: see William E. Harrold, "Keats's 'Lamia' and Peacock's 'Rhododaphne'" The Modern Language Review 61.4 (October 1966:579–584) p 579 and note with bibliography on this point. The Keats story follows the general plotline of Philostratus, with Apollonius revealing Lamia's true nature before her wedding.
[[File:Topsell-91.jpg|upright|thumb| A 17th century depiction of Lamia from Edward Topsel]'s The History of Four-Footed Beasts]]
==Modern folk traditions==
In the modern Greek folk tradition, the Lamia has survived and retained many of her traditional attributes.Lamia receives a section in Georgios Megas and Helen Colaclides, Folktales of Greece (Folktales of the World) (University of Chicago Prtes) 1970. John Cuthbert Lawson remarks "....the chief characteristics of the Lamiae, apart from their thirst for blood, are their uncleanliness, their gluttony, and their stupidity".Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in Survivals {Cambridge University Press)) 1910:175ff. The contemporary Greek proverb, "της Λάμιας τα σαρώματα" ("the Lamia's sweeping"), epitomises slovenliness; and the common expression, "τό παιδί τό 'πνιξε η Λάμια" ("the child has been strangled by the Lamia"), explains the sudden death of young children (ibid). As in Bulgarian folklore and Basque legends, the Lamia in Greece is often associated with caves and damp places.
In modern Greek folk tales, Lamia is an ogress similar to Baba-Yaga, in that she lives in a remote house or tower, eats human flesh, has magical abilities, keeps magical objects or knows information crucial to the hero of the tale's quest. The hero must avoid her, trick her or gain her favour in order to obtain one of those. In some tales, the lamia has a daughter who is also a magician and helps the hero, eventually falling in love with him. Lamia was the mother of Akhelios. Also, in modern times the lamia are sometimes seen as a 'species' of mythical half-human, half-snake creatures.
==In popular culture==
Chararcters based on or named after Lamia appear as monsters or antagonists in various media. Notable appearances include:
Booker Prize winner A.S. Byatt's 1998 collection of short fiction, Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice contains a short story entitled "A Lamia in the Cévennes".
The song "The Lamia" by progressive rock band Genesis from the album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway references the mythical creature when Rael enters a room with cool water when three of these creatures appear to him.http://www.allmusic.com/song/the-lamia-t1538430
"Lamia" is the title of a 2011 episode of the BBC TV series Merlin. The villainess is a lamia, said to be the product of the "Old Religion" combining women and serpents. She could alter men's minds and turn them to her will, leach their strength so they would sicken, and transform into a serpent-like monster.
The Lamia appears in the 2009 horror movie Drag Me to Hell voiced by Art Kimbro. It is an evil Hell demon that drags anyone to Hell that receives a special curse on that person's item from a gypsy. Its picture in the book depicts it as a wingless version of Baphomet.
Lamia is a monster in AdventureQuest Worlds. It resembles a recolored version of the Nure-onna.
Lamia is the main antagonist in Haley Riordan's short story Son of Magic (which is a part of The Demigod Diaries). She is serving Gaea upon her revival and tries to kill her demigod half-brother Alabaster C. Torrington and the mortal Dr. Harold Claymore (an author who studies death].
Lamia and Lamia Witches also appear in Joseph Delaney's book series The Wardstone Chronicles.
The character Brawne Lamia appears in Dan Simmons' novels Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion. The works of John Keats feature heavily in the novels. 
Lurine Hollister from Jacqueline Carey's Dark Currents is a Lamia. She is a supporting character who resides in Hel's domain and holds a certain type of authority within the water elemental community. Hollister notes that she is immortal as well as the only Lamia. She serves as the protagonists unofficial godmother and ally, and lives a relatively peaceful lifestyle as a retired B movie actress. 
===Roleplaying games===
Lamiae have appeared as monsters in all editions of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. The lamia was introduced to D&D in the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1977), with an illustration by David C. Sutherland III,Gygax, Gary. Monster Manual (TSR, 1977) followed by a variant, the lamia noble, in the Fiend Folio (1981).Turnbull, Don, ed. Fiend Folio (TSR, 1981) The lamia and lamia noble were kept in 2nd edition, appearing in the Monstrous Compendium Volume Two (1989),Cook, David, et al. Monstrous Compendium Volume Two (TSR, 1989) and are reprinted in the Monstrous Manual (1993).Stewart, Doug, ed. Monstrous Manual (TSR, 1993) The 3rd edition D&D Monster Manual (2000),Cook, Monte, Jonathan Tweet, and Skip Williams. Monster Manual (Wizards of the Coast, 2000) and revised 3.5 edition Monster Manual (2003) also saw the lamia's presence continue.
Lamia have also appeared in other roleplaying games which were inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, such as Pathfinder.
==See also==
* Gorgon
* Lilith
* Medusa
* Nāga
==References==
*
*Karl Kerényi, 1951. The Gods of the Greeks pp 38–40. Edition currently in print is Thames & Hudson reissue, February 1980, ISBN 0-500-27048-1.
==External links==
* Theoi Project - Lamia
* Theoi Project - Keto
Category:Greek Mythology
Category:Demons