WORD OF THE DAY.

The Word of the day comes from one of my very favourite books, "THE FIRST MAN IN ROME" by Colleen McCullough.

MORMOLYCE

MORMOLYCE  Or Mormolyceion (Mormolukeion), the same phantom or bugbear as Mormo, and also used for the same purpose. (Philostr. Vit. Apollon. iv. 25; Menandr. Reliq. p. 145, ed. Meineke; Aristoph. Thesm. 417 Strab. i. p. 19; Stob. Eclog. p. 1010.)

Mormo was -

A female spectre, with which the Greeks used to frighten little children. (Aristoph. Acharn. 582, Pax, 474.) Mormo was one of the same class of bugbears as Empusa and Lamia.

Mormo was the the queen of the frightful Laestrygones who lost her own children and so murders other children.  The Laestrygones are known to us from the Odyssey.

They are pictured here destroying Odysseus' ships.