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. mormolykeiaμορμολύκεια), also spelt mormolyceum/mɔːrˌmɒlɪˈsiːəm/ (μορμολυκεῖονmormolukeîon), is considered equivalent.
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][2]
The variant mormolyce translates to "terrible wolves", with the stem -lykeios meaning "of a wolf".[3][2]
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 (φόβητρονphóbētron), 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]
The name of "Mormo" or the synonymous "Mormolyceion" was used by the Greeks as a bugbearorbogey word to frighten children.[7][8]
Some of its instances are found in Aristophanes.[16][17] The poetess Erinna, in her poem The Distaff, recall 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]
Mormo is an evil witch in the 2007 film adaptation of the Neil Gaiman novel Stardust.[a] In the story, she is one of a triune of magically powerful sisters, the others being named Lamia and Empusa. In the book, the characters were not named.[21]
^ abL.S. (1870), Smith, William (ed.), "Mormo", A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, London: John Murray
^ abL.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".
^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."
^Snyder, Jane McIntosh (1991). The Woman and the Lyre: Women Writers in Classical Greece and Rome. Carbondale: SIU Press. pp. 94–95. ISBN9780809317066.
