Mormo
Template:Short description Script error: No such module "For". Mormo (Template:Langx, Mormō) was a female spirit in Greek folklore, whose name was invoked by mothers and nurses to frighten children to keep them from misbehaving.
The term mormolyce /mɔːrˈmɒlɪˌsiː/ (Script error: No such module "Lang".; pl. mormolykeia Script error: No such module "Lang".), also spelt mormolyceum /mɔːrˌmɒlɪˈsiːəm/ (Script error: No such module "Lang". mormolukeîon), is considered equivalent.
Etymology
The name mormo has the plural form mormones which means "fearful ones" or "hideous one(s)", and is related to an array of words that signify "fright".[1]Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list' not found.
The variant mormolyce translates to "terrible wolves", with the stem -lykeios meaning "of a wolf".[2]Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list' not found.
Description
The original Mormo was a woman of Corinth, who ate her children then flew out; according to an account only attested in a single source.[3] Mormolyca /mɔːrˈmɒlɪkə/ (as the name appears in Doric Greek: Script error: No such module "Lang".) is designated as the wetnurse (Template:Langx) of Acheron by Sophron (fl. 430 BC).[5]
Mormo or Moromolyce has been described as a female specter, phantom, or ghost by modern commentators.[6][7]Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list' not found. A mormolyce is one of several names given to the female phasma (phantom) in Philostratus's Life of Apollonius of Tyana.[8][9]
Mormo is glossed as equivalent to Lamia and mormolykeion, considered to be frightening beings, in the Suda, a lexicon of the Byzantine Periods.[10] Mombro (Script error: No such module "Lang".) or Mormo are a bugbear (Script error: No such module "Lang". phóbētron), the Suda also says.[11]
"Mormo" and "Gello" were also aliases for Lamia according to one scholiast, who also claimed she was queen of the Laestrygonians, the race of man-eating giants.[12]
Bugbear
The name "Mormo" or the synonymous "Mormolyceion" was used by the Greeks as a bugbear or bogey word to frighten children.[6][7]
Some of its instances are found in Aristophanes.[13][14] The poet Erinna, in her poem The Distaff, recalls how her and her friend Baucis feared Mormo as children.[15]
Mormo as an object of fear for infants was even recorded in the Alexiad written by a Byzantine princess around the First Crusade.[16]
Modern interpretations
A mormo or a lamia may also be associated with the empusa, a phantom sent by the goddess Hekate.Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list' not found.
References
Citations
Page Template:Reflist/styles.css has no content.
- ^ a b c Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Johnston, Sarah Iles, ed. (2013) [1999]. Restless Dead: Encounters Between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece. Univ of California Press. p. 174. ISBN 9780520280182. Template:Isbn
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Lamia & Empusa (empousa)". theoi. Retrieved 2018-01-25.
- ^ Scholios to Aristides (Dindorf, p. 41)[1]
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Johnston, Sarah Iles (1995). Meyer, Marvin W.; Mirecki, Paul Allan (eds.). Defining the Dreadful: Remarks on the Greek Child-Killing Demon. p. 367. ISBN 9789004104068.
{{cite book}}:|journal=ignored (help) Template:Isbn - ^ Sophron frag. 9, ed. Kaibel.[4]
- ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.L.S. (1870), Smith, William (ed.), "Mormo", A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, London: John Murray
- ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.L.S. (1870), Smith, William (ed.), "Mormo'lyce", A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, London: John Murray: "the same phantom or bugbear as Mormo, and also used for the same purpose".
- ^ An empousa, or lamia, she is also called in the work.
- ^ Philostratus, Life of Apollonius 4.25, quoted by Template:Harvp
- ^ "Mormo", Suda On Line, tr. Richard Rodriguez. 11 June 2009.
- ^ "Mombro", Suda On Line, tr. David Whitehead. 27 July 2009.
- ^ Scholios to Theocritus Idylls 15.40.Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list' not found.[1]
- ^ Aristophanes. Archanians, 582ff. "Your terrifying armor makes me dizzy. I beg you, take away that Mormo (bogey-monster)!"
- ^ Aristophanes. Peace, 474ff. "This is terrible! You are in the way, sitting there. We have no use for your Mormo's (bogy-like) head, friend."
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Snyder, Jane McIntosh (1991). The Woman and the Lyre: Women Writers in Classical Greece and Rome. Carbondale: SIU Press. pp. 94–95. ISBN 9780809317066.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Anna Comnena (1969), The Alexiad of Anna Comnena, Sewter, Edgar Robert Ashton (tr.), Penguin Books, p. 61, ISBN 9780140442151
Bibliography
Page Template:Refbegin/styles.css has no content.
- Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Fontenrose, Joseph Eddy (1959). Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520040915.
{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) - Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Ogden, Daniel (2013-02-28). Drakon: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199557325. Template:Isbn
- Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Ogden, Daniel (2013-05-30). "10 Lamia, Slain by Eurybatus and Others". Dragons, Serpents, and Slayers in the Classical and Early Christian Worlds: A Sourcebook. Oxford University Press. pp. 99–. ISBN 9780199925117. Template:Isbn* Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). "Mormo"
- Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Stannish, Steven M.; Doran, Christine M. (2013). "Magic and Vampirism in Philostratus's Life of Apollonius of Tyana and Bram Stoker's Dracula". Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural. 2 (2): 113–138. doi:10.5325/preternature.2.2.0113. JSTOR 10.5325/preternature.2.2.0113. S2CID 191692706.
