Their stupidity also is regarded by the Greeks as a cause of honesty. Though they are often rich, as being the consorts of dragons whose chief function it is to keep guard over hidden treasure, they have not the wit to keep their wealth, but foolishly keep their word instead. Athenian tradition tells of a very rich Lamia (known by the name of ἡ Μόρα, perhaps better written Μώρα, a proper name formed from μωρός, ‘foolish’), who used to walk about at night, seizing and crushing men whom she met till they roared like bulls. But if her victim kept his wits about him and snatched her head-dress from her, she would, in order to get it back, promise him both life and wealth, and keep her word[455].
Such aspects of the Lamiae however are by no means universally acknowledged; nine peasants out of ten, I suspect, could give no further information about their character than that they feed on human flesh and choose above all new-born infants as their prey. Hence comes the popular phrase (employed, it would appear, in more than one district of Greece) in reference to children who have died suddenly, τὸ παιδὶ τὸ ἔπνιξε ἡ Λάμια[456], ‘the Child has been strangled by the Lamia.’
But in general I think the ravages of Lamiae have ceased to inspire much genuine fear in the peasants’ minds. One there was, so I heard, near Kephalóvryso in Aetolia, whose dwelling-place, a cave beside a torrent-bed, was to some extent dreaded and avoided. But in most parts the Lamia only justifies the memory of her existence by serving to provide adventures for the heroes of folk-stories; by lending her name, along with Empusa and Mormo (who still locally survive[457]), as a terror with which mothers may intimidate naughty children, or by furnishing it as a ready weapon of vituperation in the wordy warfare of women.
The word Lamia, which has survived unchanged in form down to the present day save that the by-forms Λάμνα, Λάμνια and Λάμνισσα are locally preferred, did not originally it would seem indicate a species of monster but a single person. Lamia according to classical tradition was the name of a queen of Libya who was loved by Zeus, and thus excited the resentment of Hera, who robbed her of all her children; whereupon the desolate queen took up her abode in a grim and lonely cavern, and there changed into a malicious and greedy monster, who in envy and despair stole and killed the children of more fortunate mothers[458].