In Greek mythology, the demon who is a female vampire that devours children is Lamia.
Lamia began as a beautiful queen of Libya who became associated with Zeus. In the best-known version, Hera punished her by taking away her children—or driving her to destroy them—and Lamia’s grief turned into a monstrous appetite for other children. Ancient accounts describe her as a child-eating bogey figure used to frighten children into behaving.
Later traditions increasingly portrayed Lamia as a night-haunting female spirit, sometimes with serpentine features and sometimes as a seductive blood-drinker. This later vampire-like image overlaps with the empusa, another Greek supernatural being, which can cause confusion. They are related in later storytelling but are not simply identical in every ancient source.
Lamia also influenced later literature, including John Keats’s 1819 narrative poem “Lamia.” The name survives in modern Greek folklore as a frightening female creature, retaining its association with children, danger, and nocturnal haunting.