Mormo
Greek mythical character
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Mormo (Greek: Μορμώ, 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/ (μορμολύκη; pl. mormolykeia μορμολύκεια), also spelt mormolyceum /mɔːrˌmɒlɪˈsiːəm/ (μορμολυκεῖον mormolukeîon), is considered equivalent.
Etymology
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.[4] Mormolyca /mɔːrˈmɒlɪkə/ (as the name appears in Doric Greek: μορμολύκα) is designated as the wetnurse (Greek: τιθήνη) of Acheron by Sophron (fl. 430 BC).[6]
Mormo or Moromolyce has been described as a female specter, phantom, or ghost by modern commentators.[7][8][9] A mormolyce is one of several names given to the female phasma (phantom) in Philostratus's Life of Apollonius of Tyana.[10][11]
Mormo is glossed as equivalent to Lamia and mormolykeion, considered to be frightening beings, in the Suda, a lexicon of the Byzantine Periods.[12] Mombro (Μομβρώ) or Mormo are a bugbear (φόβητρον phóbētron), the Suda also says.[13]
"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.[15]
Bugbear
The name "Mormo" or the synonymous "Mormolyceion" was used by the Greeks as a bugbear or bogey word to frighten children.[7][8]
Some of its instances are found in Aristophanes.[16][17] The poet Erinna, in her poem The Distaff, recalls how her and her friend Baucis feared Mormo as children.[18]
Mormo as an object of fear for infants was even recorded in the Alexiad written by a Byzantine princess around the First Crusade.[19]
Modern interpretations
A mormo or a lamia may also be associated with the empusa, a phantom sent by the goddess Hekate.[20]