Creatures like Lilith, the seductive first wife of Adam, and mermaids, who lured sailors to their death, are familiar figures in the genre of monstrous temptresses who use their charms to entice men to their doom.
But if we go back 4,000 years, the roots of these demons lie in horrific creatures like Lamashtu, a lion-headed Mesopotamian demon who strangled infants and murdered pregnant women, and Gello, a virgin ghost of ancient Greece who killed expectant mothers and babies out of jealousy. Far from enticing men into danger and destruction, these monsters were part of women's ritual practices surrounding childbirth and pregnancy. So how did their mythology evolve into one focused on the seduction of men?
In Women's Lore: 4,000 Years of Sirens, Serpents, and Succubi (Apollo, 2023) Dr. Sarah Clegg takes us on an absorbing and witty journey from ancient Mesopotamia to the present day, encountering a multitude of serpentine succubi, a child-eating wolf-monster of ancient Greece, the Queen of Sheba and a host of vampires. Dr. Clegg shows how these demons were appropriated by male-centred societies, before they were eventually recast as symbols of women's liberation, offering new insights into attitudes towards womanhood, sexuality and women's rights.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.
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Thersa Matsuura, "The Book of Japanese Folklore: An Encyclopedia of the Spirits, Monsters, and Yokai of Japanese Myth" (Adams Media, 2024)
Sohini Pillai, "Krishna's Mahabharatas: Devotional Retellings of an Epic Narrative" (Oxford UP, 2024)
Cathy Yue Wang, "Snake Sisters and Ghost Daughters: Feminist Adaptations of Traditional Tales in Chinese Fantasy" (Wayne State UP, 2023)
Shakuntala Gawde, "Narrative Analysis of Bhagavata Purana: Selected Episodes from the Tenth Skandha" (Dev Publishers, 2023)
John O’Connor, "The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster" (Sourcebooks, 2024)
Imani D. Owens, "Turn the World Upside Down: Empire and Unruly Forms of Black Folk Culture in the U.S. and Caribbean" (Columbia UP, 2023)
Suzanne Oakdale, "Amazonian Cosmopolitans: Navigating a Shamanic Cosmos, Shifting Indigenous Policies, and Other Modern Projects" (U Nebraska Press, 2022)
Joseph C. Russo, "Hard Luck and Heavy Rain: The Ecology of Stories in Southeast Texas" (Duke UP, 2022)
Jakob Norberg, "The Brothers Grimm and the Making of German Nationalism" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
William G. Pooley, "Body and Tradition in 19th-Century France: Félix Arnaudin and the Moorlands of Gascony, 1870-1914" (Oxford UP, 2019)
Matthieu Felt, "Meanings of Antiquity: Myth Interpretation in Premodern Japan" (Harvard UP, 2023)
Greg Bailey, "The Brahmavaivarta Purana (Ganesa Khanda): Ancient Indian Tradition and Mythology" (Motilal Banarsidass, 2022)
Stuart McHardy, "The Nine Maidens: Priestesses of the Ancient World" (Luath Press, 2023)
Anne Duggan, "The Lost Princess: Women Writers and the History of Classic Fairy Tales" (Reaktion Books, 2023)
Jeffrey S. Debies-Carl, "If You Should Go at Midnight: Legends and Legend Tripping in America" (UP of Mississippi, 2023)
Julian Goodare and Martha McGill, "The Supernatural in Early Modern Scotland" (Manchester UP, 2023)
Michelle Karnes, "Medieval Marvels and Fictions in the Latin West and Islamic World" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
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Jeffrey J. Cohen and Julian Yates, "Noah's Arkive" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)
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