1 00:00:01,800 --> 00:00:04,320 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio, 2 00:00:06,640 --> 00:00:10,640 Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff. Lauren Vogelbaum here. When it comes to 3 00:00:10,880 --> 00:00:15,400 Speaker 1: terrifying fictional characters to fear from children's stories, though, which 4 00:00:15,480 --> 00:00:18,800 Speaker 1: from Hansel and Gretel and Baba Yaga of many Slavic 5 00:00:18,840 --> 00:00:23,040 Speaker 1: myths certainly come to mind. But there's one character from 6 00:00:23,160 --> 00:00:26,360 Speaker 1: Greek mythology who might top them all in terms of 7 00:00:26,600 --> 00:00:32,159 Speaker 1: sheer scope of evil, Lamia. There are a lot of 8 00:00:32,280 --> 00:00:36,319 Speaker 1: roots and offshoots of this character, but she's basically a 9 00:00:36,400 --> 00:00:41,800 Speaker 1: female demon known for devouring children. For the article this 10 00:00:41,840 --> 00:00:44,440 Speaker 1: episode is based on, has to Work, spoke with mythology 11 00:00:44,479 --> 00:00:48,800 Speaker 1: expert Richard P. Martin, professor in Classics at Stanford University. 12 00:00:49,280 --> 00:00:52,960 Speaker 1: He explained she would get you if you disobeyed or 13 00:00:53,280 --> 00:00:56,520 Speaker 1: so kids were instructed. She once lived in Libya in 14 00:00:56,560 --> 00:00:59,880 Speaker 1: North Africa. The story goes that, like many a demon, 15 00:01:00,240 --> 00:01:03,280 Speaker 1: she used to be a beautiful woman. Zeus, as was 16 00:01:03,320 --> 00:01:06,720 Speaker 1: his usual habit, seduced and slept with her. The chief 17 00:01:06,760 --> 00:01:09,920 Speaker 1: God's wife, Harrah, got jealous and then killed the children 18 00:01:10,040 --> 00:01:13,840 Speaker 1: of Lamia. The poor mortal woman was so overcome by 19 00:01:13,880 --> 00:01:17,759 Speaker 1: continual grief that she became horribly ugly In appearance, and 20 00:01:17,800 --> 00:01:20,000 Speaker 1: then she began to kill the children of other women 21 00:01:20,240 --> 00:01:24,400 Speaker 1: in a sort of madness of revenge. According to Martin, 22 00:01:24,720 --> 00:01:27,520 Speaker 1: one version of the Lamia tale suggests that she was 23 00:01:27,600 --> 00:01:30,880 Speaker 1: actually the queen of Libya and ordered all newborn babies 24 00:01:30,920 --> 00:01:34,040 Speaker 1: to be snatched from their mothers and slaughtered, a tale 25 00:01:34,080 --> 00:01:36,520 Speaker 1: he points out that sounds similar to the story of 26 00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:40,120 Speaker 1: Herod in the Gospel of Matthew. Martin said there are 27 00:01:40,240 --> 00:01:42,800 Speaker 1: hints from late sources that she was thought of as 28 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:48,720 Speaker 1: personally eating children. Hera, the queen of the gods, was 29 00:01:48,800 --> 00:01:52,160 Speaker 1: the ruler of marriage and family and the protector of women, 30 00:01:52,280 --> 00:01:56,760 Speaker 1: especially during childbirth. But the Greek gods were often epically 31 00:01:57,000 --> 00:02:01,400 Speaker 1: and humanly flawed characters. Harra was equally as known for 32 00:02:01,440 --> 00:02:04,800 Speaker 1: her fiercely protective instincts as she was for her pride 33 00:02:04,880 --> 00:02:09,560 Speaker 1: and jealousy, and her husband Zeus often tested those fiery 34 00:02:09,680 --> 00:02:16,120 Speaker 1: qualities with his constant infidelity. The stories go that Harra's 35 00:02:16,160 --> 00:02:19,919 Speaker 1: revenge in the case of Lamia was literal overkill, and 36 00:02:20,040 --> 00:02:23,320 Speaker 1: she murdered all of Lamia's children, regardless of whether Zeus 37 00:02:23,400 --> 00:02:27,119 Speaker 1: was the father or not. The loss pushed Lamia to madness, 38 00:02:27,160 --> 00:02:29,320 Speaker 1: and she then made it her mission to kidnap the 39 00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:33,360 Speaker 1: children of others and eat them, and these monstrosities made 40 00:02:33,400 --> 00:02:39,120 Speaker 1: her monstrous, a possibly serpentine or maybe shark light. Martin said. 41 00:02:39,520 --> 00:02:42,800 Speaker 1: Aristotle records in his History of Animals from the fourth 42 00:02:42,800 --> 00:02:46,200 Speaker 1: century BC that Lamia was the name of a kind 43 00:02:46,200 --> 00:02:50,800 Speaker 1: of shark, and other versions of the tale come with 44 00:02:50,880 --> 00:02:55,160 Speaker 1: other horrific details, and Martin said a one story preserved 45 00:02:55,200 --> 00:02:58,680 Speaker 1: only in late antique and medieval sources says Haara caused 46 00:02:58,760 --> 00:03:01,680 Speaker 1: Lamia to be bliss as well as killing her children. 47 00:03:02,080 --> 00:03:05,360 Speaker 1: So Zeus to give Lamia the opportunity to have some 48 00:03:05,560 --> 00:03:08,920 Speaker 1: rest made her eyes removable. That way they would not 49 00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:13,640 Speaker 1: always be open, at least not in her head. Lamia 50 00:03:13,800 --> 00:03:17,240 Speaker 1: was just one of several boogeymen or perhaps boogey women. 51 00:03:17,560 --> 00:03:21,720 Speaker 1: In Greek folklore, a monstrous is used to scare or warn, 52 00:03:22,480 --> 00:03:25,280 Speaker 1: Martin said. At taking the form of beautiful women and 53 00:03:25,320 --> 00:03:27,960 Speaker 1: then sucking the blood of their victims seems to have 54 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:31,360 Speaker 1: been common features in the tales about these demon types, 55 00:03:33,080 --> 00:03:36,040 Speaker 1: and modern folklore in the region still preserves some of 56 00:03:36,080 --> 00:03:40,640 Speaker 1: these traditional stories. Martin said, maybe every culture needs a 57 00:03:40,640 --> 00:03:43,440 Speaker 1: way for mothers to keep their kids from doing dangerous 58 00:03:43,480 --> 00:03:46,360 Speaker 1: things like wandering off into the woods alone or just 59 00:03:46,480 --> 00:03:50,560 Speaker 1: from misbehaving. In the early nineteenth century, for example, British 60 00:03:50,640 --> 00:03:53,960 Speaker 1: nursemaids would frighten children with stories of Bony coming to 61 00:03:54,000 --> 00:03:56,800 Speaker 1: get them uh the dreaded enemy of the realm Napoleon 62 00:03:56,840 --> 00:04:01,280 Speaker 1: Bonaparte imagined as an ogre. An ancient Greece, a demonus 63 00:04:01,320 --> 00:04:06,520 Speaker 1: called Lamia played the same role. Scary stories often fill 64 00:04:06,680 --> 00:04:10,400 Speaker 1: a societal need to discuss and deal with very real 65 00:04:10,640 --> 00:04:15,280 Speaker 1: terrors or anxieties about terrible things happening, and thus you 66 00:04:15,320 --> 00:04:18,000 Speaker 1: can find Lamia like figures in any number of other 67 00:04:18,080 --> 00:04:21,800 Speaker 1: tales and cultures of female figures who are childless or 68 00:04:21,839 --> 00:04:25,320 Speaker 1: have lost their children, and who thus steal others children. 69 00:04:26,920 --> 00:04:30,680 Speaker 1: Martin gave an example from North America quote in the 70 00:04:30,720 --> 00:04:34,479 Speaker 1: Southwest and generally in Latin America, it seems la Urona, 71 00:04:34,760 --> 00:04:38,160 Speaker 1: the wailing woman, supposedly drowned her own children or they 72 00:04:38,240 --> 00:04:41,040 Speaker 1: drowned on their own, and now haunts places at night, 73 00:04:41,240 --> 00:04:45,160 Speaker 1: crying and stealing other children. Mother's worn kids that la 74 00:04:45,400 --> 00:04:47,560 Speaker 1: Roma will snatch them if they get too close to 75 00:04:47,560 --> 00:04:53,039 Speaker 1: the water, And as with many female demons, Lamia also 76 00:04:53,080 --> 00:04:57,200 Speaker 1: became associated with the sort of dangerous sexuality, and some 77 00:04:57,400 --> 00:05:01,000 Speaker 1: stories had the monstrous Lamia in disguise, seducing and then 78 00:05:01,080 --> 00:05:04,760 Speaker 1: sometimes eating men. John Keats wrote a poem All the 79 00:05:04,760 --> 00:05:08,520 Speaker 1: Way in eighteen nineteen based on some of those. Martin 80 00:05:08,640 --> 00:05:12,480 Speaker 1: said Lamia in every day Greek or Latin could also 81 00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:16,039 Speaker 1: be used as an insult hurled at any threatening, powerful, 82 00:05:16,279 --> 00:05:20,960 Speaker 1: or ugly woman in some ancient fictional stories. Courteson's get 83 00:05:20,960 --> 00:05:24,839 Speaker 1: called this as do, which is a clearly male anxiety 84 00:05:24,880 --> 00:05:27,920 Speaker 1: at work here, blaming seductive women for the guy's own 85 00:05:28,240 --> 00:05:36,719 Speaker 1: lust fueled ruin. Today's episode is based on the article Lamia, 86 00:05:36,920 --> 00:05:39,839 Speaker 1: the female demon who devoured children in Greek Mythology on 87 00:05:39,880 --> 00:05:43,480 Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com, written by Michelle Konstantinovski. Brain 88 00:05:43,520 --> 00:05:45,760 Speaker 1: Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership with 89 00:05:45,760 --> 00:05:48,200 Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Klang. 90 00:05:48,720 --> 00:05:51,840 Speaker 1: For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, 91 00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:54,920 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.