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LAMIA

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Originally appearing in Volume V16, Page 130 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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LAMIA , in See also:

Greek See also:mythology, See also:queen of See also:Libya. She was beloved by See also:Zeus, and when See also:Hera robbed her of her See also:children out of See also:jealousy, she killed every See also:child she could get into her See also:power (Diod. Sic. xx. 41; Schol. See also:Aristophanes, See also:Pax, 757). Hence Lamia came to mean a See also:female bogey or demon, whose name was used by Greek mothers to frighten their children; from the Greek she passed into See also:Roman See also:demonology. She was represented with a woman's See also:face and a See also:serpent's tail. She was also known as a sort of fiend, the prototype of the See also:modern See also:vampire, who in the See also:form of a beautiful woman enticed See also:young men to her embraces, in See also:order that she might feed on their See also:life and See also:heart's See also:blood. In this form she appears in See also:Goethe's See also:Die Braut von See also:Corinth, and See also:Keats's Lamia. The name Lamia is clearly the feminine form of Lamus, See also:king of the See also:Laestrygones (q.v.). At some See also:early See also:period, or in some districts, Lamus and Lamia (both, according to some accounts, children of See also:Poseidon) were worshipped as gods; but the names did not attain See also:general currency. Their See also:history is remarkably like that of the See also:malignant class of demons in Germanic and See also:Celtic folk-See also:lore.

Both names occur in the See also:

geographical nomenclature of See also:Greece and See also:Asia See also:Minor; and it is probable that the deities belong to that See also:religion which spread from Asia Minor over See also:Thrace into Greece.

End of Article: LAMIA

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