Greek Mythology: Sirens and Chaos

Cover image: Ulysses and the Sirens by John William Waterhouse (1891)

Please note, this post will contain some spoilers for Shores of Chaos: Darkness Follows.

One of the narratives throughout Shores of Chaos: Darkness Follows involves beings from Greek mythology. In Shores of Chaos: Shipwrecked, I briefly touched on Elysia’s background as a siren and her story. In Darkness Follows, I delved more into her history as well as that of her family’s. Likewise, we also learn in the novel that the sentinels are agents of Chaos, the primordial deity at the beginning of time according to the ancient Greeks. So let’s take a trip to the past. 

In the Greek myths, the sirens were said to be half bird and half woman.^,1,2  In Greek statuary and vases, we see the sirens depicted as usually having a woman’s head and then more or less the body of a bird, complete with wings. In some myths, the sirens were companions to Persephone and wanted wings to find her when she became lost, but kept their female faces to continue singing.⁶ It would not be until the medieval period that writers described the sirens as having a fish-like tail.³ This is why Elysia shows up with feathers and not scales. However, I played into the idea of sirens being synonymous with mermaids in some traditions through Ligeia’s appearance, whose feathers have hardened into scale-like appendages.

The sirens would sing and play instruments to lure nearby mariners in order to bring about their destruction. However, their tune could be overcome using certain methods, such as placing wax in the ears or playing music that would drown out theirs.^1,2 Apollonius claimed that they consumed their victims with wasting desire.¹ Lycophorn claimed they could make men starve by charming them so much with their songs that they forgot to eat.⁵ This is where I got the idea that the sirens kill their victims by first filling them with ecstasy then draining them of their life force, making them look emaciated. 

While Elysia* is of course my own creation, numerous sirens were named in the Greek texts, including Molpe, Thelxiope, Ligeia, and Leucosia, among others.^4,5 While most writers claim that there were only two or three of them in existence at any one time, I figured why not have them all exist? (PS, if you want a whole listing of the different sirens and their parents, check out Wikipedia’s article on them.) While some give them different parentage, the sirens were generally said to have been the daughters of Achelous, the Greek god who is the personification of the Achelous river, and the muses.¹ Some writers claimed their mother to be Melpomene,^2,5 the muse of tragedy, while Apollonius claims their mother was Terpsichore, the muse of dance and chorus.¹ In the story, I made Ligeia’s mother Melpomene and decided to make Elysia different by having her mother be Erato, the muse of love and erotic poetry. Erato was never said to have been the mother to any of the sirens, only of Cleophema by her husband Malus.¹¹

The island where they lived is named as Anthemoessa by Hesiod.⁴ The name means flowery and is described as being covered in clover.^4,7 Homer states that the bones and flayed skins of men could be seen in their meadow.⁷ I got a bit creative with Anthemoessa, making it more fairy tale-like in the novel and not as grim. Their island is believed to have been the Sirenuse Islands or another island off the coast of western Italy near the isle of Capri. The sirens are also usually associated with other places in and around Italy.^5,8 The island’s location off Italy is why I decided to make Elysia present herself as Italian to her fellow humans.

 Finally, I revealed that the sentinels, the shadowy figures that haunt the Ashmans and Wawenock Point, are the sentient parts of Chaos. Chaos was described as the undeveloped mass at the beginning of time. It had no fixed shape, but contained the essence from which things could be made. From Chaos came Tartarus (the Underworld), Gaea (the earth), and Eros (love), with darkness and night following and from them came day and Aether (the Divine Air).^9,10 I took the more negative aspects of Chaos and made it into the story’s main antagonist. It wants to destroy all things and bring existence back to its disordered state. Thus, the cave at Wawenock Point contains the portal to the sentinels’ world, in a time and place beyond our comprehension. 

 *Elysia’s name is a play on Elysium, the resting place for the blessed and heroic after death, which was said to have been like a paradise.

Sources

1. Appollonius Rhodius, Argonautica: Book 4. 3^rd century BC. https://www.theoi.com/Text/ApolloniusRhodius4.html
2. Pseudo-Apollodorus, The Library: Epitome. C. 2^nd century AD. https://www.theoi.com/Text/ApollodorusE.html
3. Holford-Strevens, Leofranc (2006), “1. Sirens in Antiquity and the Middle Ages”, in Austern, Linda Phyllis; Naroditskaya, Inna (eds.), Music of the Siren, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 16–50, ISBN 9780253112071
4. Hesiod, Catalogues of Women. 8^th century BC. https://www.theoi.com/Text/HesiodCatalogues.html
5. Lycophron, Alexandra: Book 2. 3^rd century BC. https://www.theoi.com/Text/LycophronAlexandra2.html
6. Ovid, Metamorphoses. Book 5. 8 AD. https://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses1.html
7. Homer, The Odyessy. Book 12. 8th or 7th century BC. 1998 edition translated by Robert Fitzgerald.
8. Creatures: Sirens. https://mythopedia.com/topics/sirens
9. Hesiod, Theogony. C. 8th century BC. https://www.theoi.com/Text/HesiodTheogony.html#2
10. Chaos. https://www.greekmythology.com/Other_Gods/Chaos/chaos.html#google_vignette
11. Isyllus: Paean to Asclepius. https://www.attalus.org/poetry/paeans.html