Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers: Magical Tales of Love and Seduction

Начало книги

Thanks are due to Tappan King & Beth Meacham (who may not even remember inspiring the idea for this book many years ago), and to the folks who generously provided research material for the introduction: Ellen Steiber, Alan Lee, Brian & Wendy Froud, and Alice Scott. Thanks also to our agent Merrilee Heifetz, and our editor John Douglas.

A SIREN, ACCORDING TO the Oxford English Dictionary and modern usage of the term, is a woman with an irresistible allure, dangerous to men. The word comes from the sirens of Greek mythology: beautiful bird-women, dangerous and desirable, feared for their fatal beauty yet propitiated for their oracular wisdom. Daughters of the river Achelous and Terpsichore (the muse of choral song), they were once the virginal handmaidens to Demeter’s daughter, Persephone — until the girl’s abduction to the Underworld by the dark god, Hades. Then the sirens shape-shifted, flocking to the island Anthemoessa where their famous beauty took on a dark aspect and a deadly power. Nesting on a pile of human bones, the sisters sang to the sun and rain; their song had the power to calm or to stoke the winds … and to inflame men’s loins. This music was irresistible, luring many a sailor to their shore — where he’d pine away without food or drink, unable to break the sirens’ spell. Odysseus filled his shipmen’s ears with wax to save them from this terrible fate; Orpheus drowned the sirens out with the music of his lyre to save the Argonauts. Yet in some stories, the men who lost their lives at the sirens’ bird-claw feet died blissfully, ecstatically, in a state of sexual enchantment …

Читать дальше →