Page:Psychology of the Unconscious (1916).djvu/342

 the magic of the name of God and hid herself in the sea. Adam forced her back with the help of three angels.[83] Lilith became a nightmare, a Lamia, who threatened those with child and who kidnapped the newborn child. The parallel myth is that of the Lamias, the spectres of the night, who terrified the children. The original legend is that Lamia enticed Zeus, but the jealous Hera, however, caused Lamia to bring only dead children into the world. Since that time the raging Lamia is the persecutor of children, whom she destroys wherever she can. This motive frequently recurs in fairy tales, where the mother often appears directly as a murderess or as a ''devourer of men'';[84] a German paradigm is the well-known tale of Hansel and Gretel. Lamia is actually a large, voracious fish, which establishes the connection with the whale-dragon myth so beautifully worked out by Frobenius, in which the sea monster devours the sun-hero for rebirth and where the hero must employ every stratagem to conquer the monster. Here again we meet with the idea of the "terrible mother" in the form of the voracious fish, the mouth of death.[85] In Frobenius there are numerous examples where the monster has devoured not only men but also animals, plants, an entire country, all of which are redeemed by the hero to a glorious rebirth.

The Lamias are typical nightmares, the feminine nature of which is abundantly proven.[86] Their universal peculiarity is that they ride upon their victims. Their counterparts are the spectral horses which bear their riders along in a mad gallop. One recognizes very easily in these symbolic forms the type of anxious dream which,