Lamia

Lamia, is a female vampire creature that came from the Greek Legend.  According to them, Lamia is a vampire that stole children and feed on their blood.  The stories described her as a female with a snake like body, with the head and breast of a woman.  Lamia is usually a female creature, but sometimes they referred to it as a male and a hermaphrodite.

Based on the Greek mythology, Lamia is the daughter of the God of Sea, Poseidon and Lybie.  She is also regarded as the Queen of Libya.  Apparently Zeus was attracted to the girl and Hera found out about it.  Hera was so enraged that she kidnapped all her children and killed them except for one named Scylla.  Lamia experienced too much sorrow that it turned into a vampire creature.  She was so envious about the mothers who still have their children so she kidnapped them and killed them.

Hera cursed Lamia that she will never close her eyes to continue seeing her dead children’s image.  But Zeus grants her the ability to remove her eyes so she can rest, and also giving her the gift of prophecy in the process.

Today, the Greeks Mother would terrify their children about the idea of Lamia.  They will tell their children that if they do not behave, the Lamia would take them and suck their blood.

John Keats, an English poet also wrote something about Lamia in the year 1820 entitled Lamia.  He described the Lamia as a creature who changes into the appearance of a beautiful woman and seduced men hoping that she will be loved in return.  Some of the passage includes:

Whither fled Lamia, now a lady bright,

A full-born beauty new and exquisite?

She fled into that valley they pass o’er

Who go to Corinth from Cenchreas’ shore;

And rested at the foot of those wild hills,

The rugged founts of the Peraean rills,

And of that other ridge whose barren back

Stretches, with all its mist and cloudy rack,

South-westward to Cleone. There she stood

About a young bird’s flutter from a wood,

Fair, on a sloping green of mossy tread,

By a clear pool, wherein she passioned

To see herself escap’d from so sore ills,

While her robes flaunted with the daffodils.

But today, the Lamia take an interesting evolution, today Greeks believe that a Lamia is a form of ogress living in a secluded place.  It can also perform magic and prophesize what a hero is planning against her.  Other story states that the only child of Lamia who was left alive by Hera can help you in defeating the creature.