walk about at night, seizing and crushing men whom she met till they roared like bulls. But if her victim kept his wits about him and snatched her head-dress from her, she would, in order to get it back, promise him both life and wealth, and keep her word[1].
Such aspects of the Lamiae however are by no means universally acknowledged; nine peasants out of ten, I suspect, could give no further information about their character than that they feed on human flesh and choose above all new-born infants as their prey. Hence comes the popular phrase (employed, it would appear, in more than one district of Greece) in reference to children who have died suddenly, [Greek: to paidi to epnixe hê Lamia][2], 'the Child has been strangled by the Lamia.'
But in general I think the ravages of Lamiae have ceased to inspire much genuine fear in the peasants' minds. One there was, so I heard, near Kephalóvryso in Aetolia, whose dwelling-place, a cave beside a torrent-bed, was to some extent dreaded and avoided. But in most parts the Lamia only justifies the memory of her existence by serving to provide adventures for the heroes of folk-stories; by lending her name, along with Empusa and Mormo (who still locally survive[3]), as a terror with which mothers may intimidate naughty children, or by furnishing it as a ready weapon of vituperation in the wordy warfare of women.
The word Lamia, which has survived unchanged in form down to the present day save that the by-forms [Greek: Lamna, Lamnia] and [Greek: Lamnissa] are locally preferred, did not originally it would seem indicate a species of monster but a single person. Lamia according to classical tradition was the name of a queen of Libya who was loved by Zeus, and thus excited the resentment of Hera, who robbed her of all her children; whereupon the desolate queen took up her abode in a grim and lonely cavern, and there changed into a malicious and greedy monster, who in envy and despair stole and killed the children of more fortunate mothers[4].
But a plural of the word, indicating that the single monster had been multiplied into a whole class, soon occurs. Philostratus[5], [Greek: Hist. tôn Athên.] III. p. 156.], 1852, p. 653, and [Greek: Deltion tês Histor. kai Ethnol. Hetair.] II. p. 135.], IV. 25 (p. 76).]
