E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Lam’ia.
A female phantom, whose name was used by the Greeks and Romans as a bugbear to children. She was a Lib’yan queen beloved by Jupiter, but robbed of her offspring by the jealous Juno; and in consequence she vowed vengeance against all children, whom she delighted to entice and murder. (See FAIRY.)
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“Keats has a poem so called. His Lamia is a serpent who assumed the form of a beautiful woman, was beloved by a young man and got a soul. The tale was drawn from Philostratus.”—De Vita Apollonii, book iv., introduced by Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy.
