A lamia is a fantastic creature from Greek mythology and later folklore, usually depicted as a seductive but often bestial woman. They have occasionally appeared in Cthulhu Mythos fiction.
In Lovecraft's Fiction[]
The only appearance of the word "lamia" in Lovecraft's fiction is in the revision story "Medusa's Coil," in which Marceline Bedard is referred to as "that leopardess, or gorgon, or lamia, or whatever she was."
Clark Ashton Smith[]
Lamias are a recurring feature of Clark Ashton Smith's fiction, reflecting his interest in the intersection of sexuality and horror.[1] In "The Hunters from Beyond" (1932), Cyprian Sincaul's sculptures include, among ghouls and satyrs, "lamias voluptuously coiled about their victims, and less namable things that belonged to the outland realms of evil myth and malign superstition." Later in the story Sincaul confesses, "These statues of mine—these devils, vampires, lamias, satyrs—were all done from life,"
Lamias are a recurring element in Smith's pseudo-Medieval Averoigne setting, as reflected in his poem "Averoigne":
In Averoigne the lamia sings
To lyres restored from tombs antique,
And lets her coiling tresses fall
Before a necromantic glass.
In "The End of the Story" (1930), set in Averoigne, the student Christophe Morand is warned by the Abbot Hilaire that the Château des Faussesflammes is a "dwelling-place of foul spirits":
Some say that the demons are abominable hags whose bodies terminate in serpentine coils; others, that they are women of more than mortal beauty, whose kisses are a diabolic delight that consumes the flesh of men with the fierceness of hell-fire.
Undeterred, Morand enters Faussesflammes, and there meets Nycea, "a woman of goddess-like beauty." "Never before had I experienced a passion of such intensity, such all-consuming ardor, as the one I conceived immediately for this woman," Morand declares. He takes her in his arms; "it seemed almost as if the completeness of her yielding was unhindered by the presence of bones in her lovely body."
Nycea's seduction is interrupted by the abbot, who denounces Nycea: "Foul vampire! accursed lamia! she-serpent of hell!” After chasing her off with holy water, Hilaire explains: "the beautiful Nycea who lay in your arms this night is a lamia, an ancient vampire, who maintains in these noisome vaults her palace of beatific illusions." But even knowing what Nycea is does not prevent Morand from returning to her alluring doom.
When Anselme first meets Séphora in Smith's "The Enchantress of Sylaire" (1941), another Averoigne tale, she is described as "swaying like a lamia." Anselme's rival Malachie insists that this is more than a simile: "Séphora herself is an ancient lamia, well-nigh immortal, who feeds on the vital forces of young men," he warns the young man. Malachie points out that there are no mirrors in Séphora's chambers: "Vampires and lamias are afraid of mirrors—for a good reason.”
At the story's end, Anselme declines to use the Mirror of Reality to see whether Séphora is in fact a lamia, preferring the bliss of illusion.
References[]
- ↑ Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos, "Clark Ashton Smith," by Bobby Derie (Hippocampus Press, 2014).