Lamia (mythology)
The Lamia: In this 1909 painting by Herbert James Draper, Lamia has human legs and a snakeskin around her waist. There is also a small snake on her right forearm.
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| Grouping | Legendary creature |
|---|---|
| Sub grouping | Daemon |
| Similar creatures |
Empusa, Mormo |
| Mythology | Greek |
| Country | Born in Libya but roams throughout Europe |
In ancient Greek mythology, Lamia (/ˈleɪmiə/; 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. Modern scholarship reconstructs a Proto-Indo European stem *lem-, "nocturnal spirit", whence also lemures.
In the myth, Lamia is a mistress of the god Zeus, causing Zeus' jealous wife, Hera, to kill all of Lamia's children and transform her into a monster that hunts and devours the children of others. Another version has Hera stealing all of Lamia's children and Lamia, who loses her mind from grief and despair, starts stealing and devouring others' children out of envy, the repeated monstrosity of which transforms her into a monster.
Some accounts say she has a serpent's tail below the waist. This popular description of her is largely due to Lamia, a poem by John Keats composed in 1819.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.
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