LAMIA was a female demon, whose name was used by Greek mothers to frighten their children; from the Greek she passed into Roman demonology. She was also known as a sort of fiend, the prototype of the modern vampire, who in the form of a beautiful woman enticed young men to her embraces, in order that she might feed on their life and heart’s blood. In this form the tale has been used by Goethe as the subject of one of his most powerful poems, Die Braut von Corinth. The name Lamia is clearly the feminine form of Lamus, king of the Laestrygones (q.v. y ). Both are called in some forms of the legends children of Poseidon; and the analogy of other myths makes it probable that they are ultimately a pair of deities, male and female. At some early period, or in some districts, Lamus and Lamia were worshipped as gods; but the names did not attain general currency. Their worship disappeared, and they preserved an existence only in legend. They have gained a worse character than any other of the old divine forms which persist in Greek legend; but their history is remarkably like that of the malignant class of demons in Germanic and Celtic folklore. Both names occur in the geographical nomenclature of Greece and Asia Minor; and this makes it probable that the deities belong to that religion which spread from Asia Minor over Thrace into Greece.