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Lamia: meaning

Also: lamiae, snake woman, lamia monster girl

Lamia: Lamia is a figure from Greek myth: a queen of Libya loved by Zeus, whom Hera turned into a monster. The word also names a class of female demons. In modern fantasy a lamia is a woman with a serpent's lower body, close to a naga, and a staple of monster girl stories.

The word and where it comes from

Lamia is a Greek name (Λάμια). The comic playwright Aristophanes connected it to laimos, "gullet", which fits the way the monster devours. Whether the word truly comes from there is uncertain; the safe statement is that ancient writers heard the throat in it. In Latin and later European languages it became the general word for a female monster who lures men.

The myth

In the Greek tale, Lamia was a beautiful queen of Libya, daughter of Belus or, in other versions, of Poseidon. Zeus loved her and they had offspring together. Hera, jealous, took those offspring away. Sources vary on the exact cruelty: she hid them, killed them, or forced Lamia to do it. Grief and madness turned Lamia into a monster who preyed on other women's babies.

Two odd details are worth keeping. In some versions Hera made her unable to sleep, and Zeus pitied her and let her take her eyes out and set them aside to rest. That is why later stories give lamiae removable eyes. In another version one of her offspring survived: Scylla, the sea monster.

Lamia as a type

Greek and Roman writers turned the single queen into a class, lamiae, who appeared as beautiful women, seduced young men and drank their life. The best-known later telling is in Philostratus, where a young philosopher is about to marry a lovely woman who is exposed as a lamia, and the spell breaks at the wedding feast. In the nineteenth century John Keats retold it in his poem Lamia, which made her a snake turned into a woman by magic and cemented the link to serpents.

Lamia in monster girl fiction

In modern fantasy a lamia is a woman from the waist up with a long serpent's body below, typically many metres of coil. That makes her nearly the same as a naga in Indian tradition; see lamia vs naga for how the two differ. She is also kin to the gorgon, with whom she is often confused: lamia vs gorgon.

Typical modern traits:

The coil. Wrapping, holding and keeping are her signature gestures. It is the most important detail in audio, because the sound of slow coils and the weight around you does the work.
Patience. A lamia hunts by waiting, and a fantasy lamia is usually calm, warm to the touch in contrast to the cold-blooded stereotype, and fond of her prey in the way a cat is fond of a mouse she is not going to hurt.
Hypnotic voice. Snake-charming imagery makes her a natural for slow, rhythmic speech.

Lamia in my audio

My lamia sessions are built around the coil. The Lamia's Coil: Wrapped and Kept is the first, and Coil: Wrapped in the Lamia's Temple is the deeper one. She is an adult being, and everything is consensual fiction. If you want the full family tree, read what is a monster girl and the monster girl bestiary.

A naga is the Indian serpent being; a gorgon has snakes for hair and a petrifying gaze; arachne and drider are the spider equivalents. A monster girl (or monster musume) is the umbrella. For the origin of the word itself, the older sense, the myth of the queen, is the one that every other sense descends from.

Examples in a sentence

In the old story the lamia was a queen before grief made her a monster.
The lamia coiled around him slowly, patient as stone.
Keats wrote a poem about a lamia who passed as a woman until the spell broke.
In the game her class was lamia, with a serpent's tail and a hypnotic gaze.

Frequently asked questions

What does lamia mean?

In Greek myth Lamia was a queen of Libya loved by Zeus and turned into a monster by Hera. In fantasy the word names a woman with a snake's lower body. The two meanings are connected by the idea of a beautiful, dangerous woman.

Is a lamia the same as a naga?

Not originally. A lamia comes from Greek myth, a naga from Indian tradition. In modern fiction both are women with serpent bodies, so they are often treated as one type, but their origins and symbolism differ.

Why do lamias have removable eyes?

In one version of the myth Hera made Lamia unable to sleep, and Zeus allowed her to take out her eyes and rest them. The detail passed into later lamia folklore and is still used in fantasy.

Read the full guide

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