In Greek and Roman literary tradition the strix appears both as a monstrous nocturnal bird and as a term applied to certain malignant women. Antoninus Liberalis preserves a version (from Boios) in which a metamorphosed woman becomes a bird that cries by night with head downward and feet upward and is said to be a harbinger of war and civil strife. Latin authors (from Plautus through Ovid and later glossators) extend the concept into manifold literary episodes: metamorphosis narratives, witchcraft glosses, and anecdotes of corpse theft and infant attack.
Classical descriptions vary. Ovid (Fasti) gives a detailed birdlike account summarized as a large-headed bird with intense eyes, a rapacious beak, greyish-white wings, and hooked claws. Other accounts describe the strix as dark-colored or emphasize an inverted, hanging posture (head below, feet above) in origin-myth contexts. Literary usage also pictures human women who fly or transform into striges, so appearance can be avian, hybrid, or a denotation applied to certain women.
Sources attribute nocturnal cries and violent feeding on human flesh and blood to the striges: Ovid describes disemboweling of infants and blood-feeding; Plautus uses the image metaphorically of devouring humans; Petronius recounts striges snatching a corpse and substituting a dummy. Some classical and later reports (noted by Pliny and Titinius summaries) assert a motif of the strix squirting foul-smelling milk onto infants' lips. The name and parts of the creature (feathers, wings) appear in magical recipes (Horace, Propertius, the mythic catalogue of Medea's concoctions), and the term is used in maledictions and lexical glosses equating striges with witchy women (Festus, Isidore, John of Damascus).
Weaknesses
- substancegarlic (placed on the infant)
- ritualexpulsion from doorways by a whitethorn (spina) wand used by Cranae/Carna (Ovid's Fasti account)
Wards
- substancegarlic amulet for infants (Titinius/Pliny tradition)
- ritualdoor-warding with a whitethorn wand given by Janus and used by Cranae/Carna to keep striges from a newborn (Ovid, Fasti)
Stree
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Gello
A child-strangling demoness of Greek and Byzantine tradition, the spirit of a young woman who died before marriage, now preying on pregnant women and newborns.
Empusa
A shape-shifting seductress-demon of ancient Greek folklore — sent by the goddess Hecate to ambush travellers at night, taking the form of beautiful women to feed on the blood and flesh of young men.
Ghoul
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Lamia
In ancient Greek mythology, Lamia is described as a child-eating monster who, in later tradition, came to be regarded as a type of night-haunting spirit or 'daimon'. The supplied sources do not provide a full physical description or detailed mythic genealogy, and some modern fictional portrayals recast her with serpentine features which are not attested in the provided classical summary.
*Péh₂usōn (reconstructed)
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Aba (disambiguation / name-form)
Aba is a polyvalent name-form attested across many unrelated contexts (place names, personal names, animal names, and brief mythological listings). The provided sources do not support a single, coherent supernatural entity called "Aba" and offer no descriptive or ritual material for such a being.
Abandinus
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Abarbarea
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Abas
Abas (Ancient Greek: Ἄβας, gen.: Ἄβαντος) is not a single mythic being but a recurring personal name borne by multiple mortals and minor mythic figures in Greek epic and genealogical traditions — kings, founders, seers, warriors, attendants, a centaur, and a youth transformed by a goddess. The name is glossed in the sources as 'guileless' or 'good-hearted' and appears across Argive, Theban, Trojan, Euboean, and other local cycles.
Abderus
Abderus (Ancient Greek: Ἄβδηρος, romanized Ábdēros) is a mortal heroic figure in Greek myth closely associated with Heracles, remembered as the youth left in charge of the Mares of Diomedes who was killed by them. He functions as an eponymous local/divine-hero ancestor for the city of Abdera and received funerary commemoration and athletic agones at his tomb.
Abellio
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Abnoba
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Abomination of Desolation
An apocalyptic prophetic phrase originating in the Book of Daniel designating a profaning thing or act that renders the Jerusalem Temple cult desolate; later reused in the Synoptic Gospels as an eschatological sign prompting urgent flight. The term denotes ritual/cultic impurity (Hebrew shiqquts) and is variously interpreted as pagan offerings or altar, a foreign cult statue, or (in some New Testament readings) an acting agent.
Aborigines (mythology)
A mytho-historical label used in Roman and general reference sources to denote the oldest inhabitants of a region (specifically central Italy in the cited Roman context). The term functions as an identity/category for original human populations rather than as a characterized supernatural being in the provided sources.
Absyrtus
Absyrtus (Ancient Greek: Ἄψυρτος) is a Colchian prince in the Greek Argonautic cycle, son of King Aeëtes and brother or half-brother of Medea. He appears in variant traditions either as a companion taken by Medea during her flight with Jason and murdered/dismembered to delay pursuit, or as a pursuer sent by Aeëtes who is overtaken and slain by Jason; his death functions as a key narrative device in the escape from Colchis.
Abundantia
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Community Record
- [1]Strix (mythology) — Wikipedia. Wikipedia article 'Strix (mythology)' summarizing classical sources (Antoninus Liberalis, Ovid, Plautus, Petronius, Pliny, Festus, Isidore, John of Damascus, etc.)wiki
- [2]Mythical Monsters in Classical Literature (overview). Scholarly collection treating monsters of classical literature; used in research notes regarding thematic placement of the strix among vampiric/child-harming entitiesacademic
- [3]Ovid, Fasti (summarized). Ovid's Fasti — gives the detailed physical description of the strix and the narrative of the cradle attack and the whitethorn wand (as summarized in the collected sources)literary
- [4]Antoninus Liberalis (preserving Boios). Antoninus Liberalis preserves a Boios tale describing metamorphosis into a bird that cries by night with inverted posture and serves as harbinger of war/civil strife (summarized in source material)literary
- [5]Petronius, Satyricon (anecdote). Petronius' Satyricon anecdote of striges snatching a corpse and announcing themselves by a scream (summarized)literary
- [6]Pliny the Elder (natural history summaries). Pliny records reports that the strix squirts milk on infants' lips and notes the term's use in maledictions, while expressing skepticism about identifying it as a real species (summarized)literary
- [7]Plautus, Pseudolus (usage). Plautus uses 'striges' metaphorically as 'vampyre owls' to evoke man-eating imagery (summary)literary
- [8]Horace and Propertius (magical recipes mention). References to the use of feathers/wings in love potions and magical preparations citing Horace, Propertius, and mythic lists such as Medea's brew (summarized)literary