By the Gods!

Lamia

Lamia is another character from Greek mythology that ran into trouble when she met up with Zeus. A queen of Libya and daughter of Poseidon, her affair with the king of the gods put her on Hera’s radar as another competitor for Zeus’ affection. Not being the forgiving sort, Hera slew Lamia’s children, driving her insane with grief. Hera also transformed Lamia into a baby-eating monster with the lower body of a snake, or, depending on the source, a half-woman half-cat with snake scales.

Lamia was unable to get the image of her slaughtered children out of her mind, which meant that the sight of other children unbearable for her. Clearly, eating them was the only rational choice. At this point Zeus felt he was maybe at least partially responsible for Lamia’s misfortune, and decided to intervene: instead of restoring her children, her human form, or her sanity, Zeus decided to grant Lamia the ability to remove her own eyes. What a champ of an ex-boyfriend.

Some stories go on to say that Lamia had more crazy monster children afterwards, all sporting the same appearance: top half of a beautiful woman, lower half of a snake. These nightmarish land-mermaids are known as lamias with a lowercase “L” and appear in every good fantasy universe to this day.