Lamia

In ancient Greek mythology, Lamia was a beautiful queen of Libya who became a child-eating daemon. Aristophanes claimed her name derived from the Greek word for gullet, referring to her habit of devouring children.

Some accounts say she has a serpent's tail below the waist. This popular description of her is largely due to Lamia, a poem by John Keats published in 1819. Antonius Liberali suses Lamia as an alternate name for the serpentine drakana Sybaris; however, Diodorus Siculus describes her as having nothing more than a distorted face.

Later traditions referred to many lamiae; these were folkloric monsters similar to vampires and succubi that seduced young men and then fed on their blood.