Lamia
Once a Libyan queen loved by Zeus, Lamia was cursed by Hera to lose her children and never sleep. Twisted into a serpent-bodied predator, she hunts the young and envies mothers, sometimes charming travelers before feeding.
Story beats
- 1) Hera kills Lamia’s children in vengeance; grief and lack of sleep warp Lamia into a monster.
- 2) She wanders night roads, snatching infants or seducing men to drink their blood.
- 3) In some tales she can remove her eyes to rest; in others she is eternally wakeful.
- 4) Wards, lullabies, or protective charms are placed to keep her away from nurseries.
Context & symbolism
Lamia embodies maternal grief weaponized into predation and warns against jealousy’s corrosion. Her sleeplessness mirrors obsessive revenge; removable eyes symbolize agency over perception and vulnerability.
Later folklore merged lamiae with vampiric seductresses, reflecting anxieties about feminine power outside family structures.
Motifs
- Serpent lower body
- Eyes removed to sleep
- Predation on children or lovers
- Jealous curse origins
Use it in play
- Guard a village nursery through a moonless night; Lamia hunts the lullaby’s source.
- Recover Lamia’s stolen eyes to bargain for peace—or power.
- Encounter a charming stranger whose shadow is serpentine; uncover her hunger.
- Break Hera’s curse by reuniting Lamia with a relic of her lost children, changing her path.