Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997)
Lamias
Tagged: Theme.
A species of empusas (demons sent by Hecate to waylay and devour travellers) whose members had the trick of disguising themselves as young women in order to beguile men before supping their blood. Some accounts suggest their natural form was serpentine; a tale of this kind reproduced from Philostratus in Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) inspired John Keats's poem "Lamia" (1820). Lamias provide one of the basic models of the Femme Fatale and the female Vampire. [BS]