The strix-witch Daniel Ogden

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ogden, Daniel, author.

Series:

Cambridge elements. Elements in magic

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Witches--Rome.

Witches.

Mythology, Roman.

Rome (Empire).

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom New York, NY Cambridge University Press 2021

Summary:

The strix was a persistent feature of the folklore of the Roman world and subsequently that of the Latin West and the Greek East. She was a woman that flew by night, either in an owl-like form or in the form of a projected soul, in order to penetrate homes by surreptitious means and thereby devour, blight or steal the new-born babies within them. The motif-set of the ideal narrative of a strix attack - the 'strix-paradigm' - is reconstructed from Ovid, Petronius, John Damascene and other sources, and the paradigm's impact is traced upon the typically gruesome representation of witches in Latin literature. The concept of the strix is contextualised against the longue-durée notion of the child-killing demon, which is found already in the ancient Near East, and shown to retain a currency still as informing the projection of the vampire in Victorian fiction

Contents:

Cover

Title page

Copyright page

The Strix-Witch

Contents

1 The Roman Strix: Terminology and Texts

1.1 The Strix Introduced

1.2 Terminology

1.3 Ovid's Fasti

1.4 Petronius' Satyricon

1.5 A Byzantine Fragment: John Damascene?

2 The Motif-Set and Paradigm

2.1 Motif A: The Strix as an (Old) Witch

2.2 Motif B: Operating by Night

2.3 Motif C: Flying and Bird Transformation

2.4 Motif D: Flying and Soul-Projection

Invisibility

2.5 Motif E: Screeching

2.6 Motif F: Imperceptibility and the Battle of the House

2.7 Motif G: (Whole) Body-Snatching

2.8 Motif H: The Extraction of Innards and Body-Parts

2.9 Motif I: The Extraction of Moisture

2.10 Motif J: Imperceptibility and the Battle of the Body

2.11 Motif K: The Imposition of a Time-Limit on Life

2.12 Motif L: Fighting Back against the Strix

2.13 Motif M: The Strix Coven

and Cooking

2.14 Motif N: The Folktale and the Folkloric

2.15 Conclusion: The Strix-Paradigm

3 Roman Witches: The Impact of the Strix-Paradigm

3.1 Horace's Canidia

3.2 Ovid's Bawd-Witch Dipsas

3.3 The Snatching of Iucundus

3.4 Lucan's Erictho

3.5 The Thessalian Witches of Apuleius' Metamorphoses

3.6 Augustine's Italian Landladies

3.7 The Witches of Burchard of Worms

3.8 Conclusion

4 The Longue Durée: Greece and the Near East

4.1 Mesopotamian Lamashtu and Gallû

4.2 Greek Lamia and Gello

4.3 Was There a Greek Strix Before the Roman One?

5 Conclusion

References

Notes:

Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on May 22, 2021)

Other Format:

Print version:

ISBN:

9781108956970

1108956971

9781108953474

1108953476

OCLC:

1252527670

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license