Mormo (mythology)
Mormo ( Greek Μορμώ, Μορμών , also Mormolyke or Mormolykia ) is a female ghost in Greek mythology that has similarities with the Lamia and Gello . Young children were threatened with this demonic figure; Mormo is said to have stalked children like the Lamia and devoured them. The aition as to why Mormo acted so viciously is related to that of Lamias. According to this, Mormo was allegedly originally the queen of the Laistrygons , a race of giants and cannibals mentioned in Homer and Ovid , who, embittered by the death of their children, now persecuted other children. Allusions to this bugbear are not very common; they are first found in the Greek comedy poet Aristophanes and the Greek historian Xenophon.
literature
- Gerhard Fink , Who's who in ancient mythology , p. 152, dtv ; Munich (2002).
- Sarah Iles Johnston: Mormo. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 8, Metzler, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-476-01478-9 .
- Clemens Zintzen : Mormo. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 3, Stuttgart 1969, column 1430.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Suda M 1252, sv Μορμώ ( online ); Scholia to Theocritus 15:40 .
- ↑ a b Xenophon , Hellenika 4, 4, 17.
- ↑ Scholia to Theocritus 15:40.
- ↑ Aristophanes, Die Acharner 582; The Knights 693; Peace 474.