Gello
Encyclopedia
In the myth and folklore
of the Near East
and Europe
, Gello (also Gyllou, Gylou, Gillo, etc.) is one of the many names for a female demon
or revenant who threatens the reproductive cycle
by causing infertility
, spontaneous abortion
, and infant mortality
.
By the Byzantine era
, the gello had become a type of demonic possession
rather than an individual being. Women might be tried for being gelloudes or subjected to exorcism
.
inscriptional
evidence of a child-snatching demon appears on a silver lamella (metal-leaf sheet) from Palestine
and two incantation bowls dating to the 5th or 6th century; on these she is called Sideros (Greek for iron
, a traditional protection for women during childbirth). Under various names, she continues to appear in medieval Christian manuscript
s written in Greek
, Coptic
, Ethiopian
, Armenian
, Romanian
, Slavonic
, Syriac
, Arabic
, and Hebrew
. In literary texts and on amulet
s, the demon's adversaries are Solomon, saint
s, or angel
s.
Knowledge of a demon's name was required to control or compel it; a demon could act under an alias. Redundant naming is characteristic of magic charms, "stressing," as A.A. Barb noted in his classic essay "Antaura," "the well-known magic rule that the omission of a single one can give the demons a loophole through which they can work their harm."
In one Greek tale set in the time of “Trajan
the King,” the demon under torture reveals her “twelve and a half names”:
Elsewhere, the twelve-and-a-half names are given as Gylo, Morrha, Byzo
, Marmaro, Petasia, Pelagia, Bordona, Apleto, Chomodracaena, Anabardalaea, Psychoanaspastria, Paedopniktria, and Strigla. Although magic words (voces magicae) have often been corrupted in transmission
or deliberately exoticized, several of these names suggest recognizable Greek elements and can be deciphered as functional epithets: Petasia, "she who strikes"; Apleto, "boundless, limitless"; Paedopniktria, "child suffocator." Byzo is a form of Abyzou
, abyssos, "the Deep," to which Pelagia ("she of the sea") is equivalent.
Gello is named also in works by the polymaths John of Damascus
(7th–8th century) and Michael Psellos
(11th century), the latter of whom notes that he has found her only in "an apocrypha
l Hebrew book" ascribed to Solomon and not in his usual sources for demonic names in antiquity. Psellos was one of the earliest scholars to identify Gello with the Hebrew Lilith
, and says that these demons "suck blood and devour all the vital fluids which are in the little infant." The 17th-century Greek Catholic
scholar Leo Allatios
, however, criticizes Psellos and insists that the gello, Lilith and other demonic creatures should be regarded as separate and unrelated.
derived Gello from the Near Eastern demon Gallu
. M.L. West
also pointed to the Babylonian–Assyrian gallû, a word perhaps related to "ghoul," as a demonic revenant who brings sickness and death.
Because etymology in antiquity was interpretive and phonic
, and not based on scientific linguistics
, the Greeks themselves might have heard the root gel-, "grin, laugh," in the sense of mocking or grimacing, like the expression often found on the face of the Gorgon
, to which Barb linked the reproductive demons in origin. Such demons are often associated with or said to come from the sea, and demonologies identify Gyllou with Abyzou
, whose name is related to abyssos, the abyss or "deep."
(aition). The fears she personifies thus associate her with the Mormo
and Lamia
, whose narratives also show them to have suffered the fate that they in turn inflict on other women. Mormo, driven to insanity, killed and ate her own children; Lamia was the lover of Zeus
and bore him many children, but Hera
in her envy
killed each as it was born.
Gello was once a young woman who died a virgin. The Christian-era lexicographer
Hesychius
said that she was a ghost (eidolon) who attacked both virgins and newborn babies. The earliest mention of this demonic creature by her Greek name occurs in a fragment of Sappho
of Lesbos
, in which Gello is said to be "fond of children." The fragment is preserved by the 2nd-century compiler Zenobius
, who offers a psychological explanation:
Magic texts and amulets attest by name to the prevalence of a belief in reproductive demons in the Greco-Roman world
. During the Byzantine period, textual evidence of the child-harming demon is most often found in exorcism
s or demonologies
. Historian of ancient religion Sarah Iles Johnston suggests that this belief is expressed more commonly in earlier literature than has been noticed. The Homer
ic epics allude to the unmarried dead, who are excluded from the Underworld
and might harm the living. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter
, Demeter
in her role as a kourotrophic ("youth-nurturing") goddess promises to protect her hosts' infant from demonic attack in language that recalls known magical incantations. Centuries later, in Augustan Rome
, Ovid
describes the practice of protecting doorways with buckthorn
after the birth of a child to ward off striges
, winged female demons who were thought to suck the blood of newborns. One of the twelve-and-a-half names of Gylo (see above) is Strigla, a form of the word strix as a kind of witch.
Michael Psellos says that Gello also killed pregnant women and their fetus
es. Thus Gello in general blocked the cycle of reproduction. The patriarch
John of Damascus, in the treatise Peri strygnôn ("Regarding striges
"), records a belief among the "common people," still current in his day, that ghosts called gelloudes or striges flew nocturnally, slipped into houses even when the windows and doors were barred, and strangled sleeping infants. John's use of the plural shows that Gello has become a type, rather than an individual revenant. The 14th-century Greek ecclesiastical historian
Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos
said gelloudes "bring the infant from the bedroom, as if about to devour him." Leo Allatios explicitly cross-identifies striges and gelloudes, recasting the demonic or revenant gello of Eastern tradition as the witch of Western Europe, who is often marginalized by age and poverty. The transformation of the gello from the ancient "virginal reproductive demon" to an envious crone
occurs in the Christian era; what the virgin and crone share is their exclusion from the reproductive cycle, and their envy of fertility. The Greek folk belief
continued into the modern era.
Although reports of Gello's behavior are consistent, her nature is less determinate. She is regarded as a demon in exorcisms and commanded as an "unclean spirit
" (akatharton pneuma
). But her aition as a human being would make a ghost of her, as did her gender
ed nature, since demons, like angels, were officially sexless in the theology of the Church
. Johnston prefers to use the Greek word aôrôs, "untimely dead," for this form of transgressive or liminal
soul or entity, finding the usual phrase "child-killing demon" to be misleading.
magico-medical compilation Cyranides
provides defensive spells against the "frightful woman" (horrida mulier) who attacks babies. The eagle-stone or aetites
is to be worn as an amulet
to prevent miscarriage
, to assure timely and complication-free delivery
, and to relieve delirium
and night terror
s associated with Gello and other revenants. A cross
or image of Christ
might be placed by a child's bed to ward off Gello or demons in general; burning lamps
to illuminate sacred images and incense
were also used in the bedroom. The practice of baptizing
infants was thought to offer protection against demon-snatching, and specifically against the gello, according to Leo Allatios
. Allatios also records, but does not condone, the hanging of red coral
or a head of garlic on the infant's cot, along with other remedies he finds too unspeakable to name.
by disguising herself as a fly on the saint's horse, since only Sisinnius could pass through the gate.
There is an Ethiopian tradition in which the sister of Sisinnius was possessed by a demon and killed newborns. When Sisinnius became a Christian
, he murdered her. In a Byzantine version, Sisinnius defends his sister Melitene's children from the demon Gyllou. A sample narrative of Melitene's travails against the gelu may be found online.
A 15th-century manuscript describes an encounter between the archangel Michael
and Gylou:
Although the name Gylou is not found on any surviving amulets, Michael is the adversary Gylou encounters most often in medieval Byzantine texts.
The protections against Gellou, as an embodiment of envy, resemble those against the evil eye
. One exorcism text dating from around the turn of the 19th–20th century gives Baskania as a name for the gello as well as for the evil eye.
The psychological aspects of Gello were observed also by Leo Allatios
in his work De Graecorum hodie quorundam opinionibus ("On the beliefs of the Greeks today"). Textual sources he collected on the Gello included Sappho's poem, the Suda
, exorcisms, a church history, the Life of Patriarch Tarasios of Constantinople
written by Ignatius the Deacon, and proverb
s. Allatios's purpose was to demonstrate the continuity of customs and morals, but also to show that these beliefs distorted or ran contrary to Christian doctrine. Sometimes the acts characteristic of Gello were attributed to "poor and miserable old crones," who could be accused in court as gelloudes and might even claim or confess to have acted as such. In his Life of Tarasios, Ignatius the Deacon recounts an actual case in which two women were charged as gelloudes and brought before his subject's father, who acquitted
them. Penance
might be prescribed for confessed
gelloudes, and is found specified in a few Nomocanon
s, or collections of ecclesiastical law. Michael Psellos, however, rejected the notion that human beings could transform into demonic beings, and so there would be no need for a particular penance; the official position of Orthodoxy was that such creatures did not exist.
Despite her official non-existence, the gello is named in exorcisms, which required the attendance of a priest
, and in prayer formularies
. The Virgin Mary
is invoked against the child-harming demon gylo:
In one exorcism of the gello, no fewer than 36 saints are invoked by name along with Mary and the "318 Saints of the Fathers", with a final addendum of "all the saints." Some prayers resemble magic spells in attempting to command or compel the saints, rather than humbly requesting aid. Exorcisms emphasize that Christian families deserve exclusive protection. Gello continued to be named in exorcisms into the 20th century.
In early Christianity, a program of exorcism was preliminary to baptism as a kind of purification
and to drive away evil spirits, and not necessarily because the person was thought to be possessed
. The ambiguous state of the unbaptized is expressed by conflicting views of the infant: that the newborn had not sinned, and that the newborn nonetheless bore the pollution of original sin and was thus closer to the Devil than to God. The travel writer Sonnini de Manoncourt
recorded that the Greeks called an unbaptized child drako (or dracon, "serpent
, python
, dragon
"). At baptism, the name Drako is shed and replaced with a Christian name. The names of Gylo include Chomodracaena, containing drakaina, "female dragon." In one text dealing with the gello, she is banished to the mountains to drink the blood of the drako; in another, she becomes a drako and in this form attacks human beings. In other texts, the child itself is addressed as Abouzin (Abyzou
).
In ancient and medieval medical texts, a child was thought to be conceived from the father's "seed" and the mother's blood. The gello, herself infertile and envious, aimed to drink blood, the source of fertility, and was attracted to the dangerous time of birth and recovery in part because the new mother was regarded in Judaeo-Christian tradition as unclean; this state of pollution was congenial to demons. As long as the infant remained exclusively within the birth mother's sphere of influence, it was vulnerable to female demons seeking blood. In the story of Melitene, sister of the saints Sisinnios and Sisynodorus, the child is in peril until it is "returned" to the hands of men. In one version, the gello swallows the child and must be forced by the male saints to regurgitate it alive. This cycle — death by swallowing, regurgitation, new life — may be symbolized in initiation ceremonies such as baptism, which marked the separation of the child from the taint of its mother's gello-attracting blood.
, a belief system that venerates Lucifer
. In The Bible of the Adversary by Michael W. Ford, she is associated with Lilith and represents Vampyrism
as a desire for eternal life.
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
of the Near East
Near East
The Near East is a geographical term that covers different countries for geographers, archeologists, and historians, on the one hand, and for political scientists, economists, and journalists, on the other...
and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Gello (also Gyllou, Gylou, Gillo, etc.) is one of the many names for a female demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
or revenant who threatens the reproductive cycle
Human reproduction
Human reproduction is any form of sexual reproduction resulting in the conception of a child, typically involving sexual intercourse between a man and a woman. During intercourse, the interaction between the male and female reproductive systems results in fertilization of the woman's ovum by the...
by causing infertility
Infertility
Infertility primarily refers to the biological inability of a person to contribute to conception. Infertility may also refer to the state of a woman who is unable to carry a pregnancy to full term...
, spontaneous abortion
Miscarriage
Miscarriage or spontaneous abortion is the spontaneous end of a pregnancy at a stage where the embryo or fetus is incapable of surviving independently, generally defined in humans at prior to 20 weeks of gestation...
, and infant mortality
Infant mortality
Infant mortality is defined as the number of infant deaths per 1000 live births. Traditionally, the most common cause worldwide was dehydration from diarrhea. However, the spreading information about Oral Re-hydration Solution to mothers around the world has decreased the rate of children dying...
.
By the Byzantine era
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
, the gello had become a type of demonic possession
Demonic possession
Demonic possession is held by many belief systems to be the control of an individual by a malevolent supernatural being. Descriptions of demonic possessions often include erased memories or personalities, convulsions, “fits” and fainting as if one were dying...
rather than an individual being. Women might be tried for being gelloudes or subjected to exorcism
Exorcism
Exorcism is the religious practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed...
.
The names of Gello
AramaicAramaic language
Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...
inscriptional
Epigraphy
Epigraphy Epigraphy Epigraphy (from the , literally "on-writing", is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs as writing; that is, the science of identifying the graphemes and of classifying their use as to cultural context and date, elucidating their meaning and assessing what conclusions can be...
evidence of a child-snatching demon appears on a silver lamella (metal-leaf sheet) from Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
and two incantation bowls dating to the 5th or 6th century; on these she is called Sideros (Greek for iron
Iron in folklore
Iron has a long and varied tradition in the mythology and folklore of the world. As human blood smells of the iron which its cells contain, and blood in many traditions is equated with the life-force, so iron and minerals have been considered to be the blood or life-force of the Earth. This...
, a traditional protection for women during childbirth). Under various names, she continues to appear in medieval Christian manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
s written in Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
, Coptic
Coptic language
Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the current stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the 1st century...
, Ethiopian
Ethiopian Semitic languages
Ethiopian Semitic is a language group, which together with Old South Arabian forms the Western branch of the South Semitic languages. The languages are spoken in both Ethiopia and Eritrea...
, Armenian
Armenian language
The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...
, Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, Slavonic
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
, Syriac
Syriac language
Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...
, Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, and Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
. In literary texts and on amulet
Amulet
An amulet, similar to a talisman , is any object intended to bring good luck or protection to its owner.Potential amulets include gems, especially engraved gems, statues, coins, drawings, pendants, rings, plants and animals; even words said in certain occasions—for example: vade retro satana—, to...
s, the demon's adversaries are Solomon, saint
Saint
A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
s, or angel
Angel
Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...
s.
Knowledge of a demon's name was required to control or compel it; a demon could act under an alias. Redundant naming is characteristic of magic charms, "stressing," as A.A. Barb noted in his classic essay "Antaura," "the well-known magic rule that the omission of a single one can give the demons a loophole through which they can work their harm."
In one Greek tale set in the time of “Trajan
Trajan
Trajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
the King,” the demon under torture reveals her “twelve and a half names”:
Elsewhere, the twelve-and-a-half names are given as Gylo, Morrha, Byzo
Abyzou
In the myth and folklore of the Near East and Europe, Abyzou is the name of a female demon. Abyzou was blamed for miscarriages and infant mortality and was said to be motivated by envy , as she herself was infertile...
, Marmaro, Petasia, Pelagia, Bordona, Apleto, Chomodracaena, Anabardalaea, Psychoanaspastria, Paedopniktria, and Strigla. Although magic words (voces magicae) have often been corrupted in transmission
Textual criticism
Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...
or deliberately exoticized, several of these names suggest recognizable Greek elements and can be deciphered as functional epithets: Petasia, "she who strikes"; Apleto, "boundless, limitless"; Paedopniktria, "child suffocator." Byzo is a form of Abyzou
Abyzou
In the myth and folklore of the Near East and Europe, Abyzou is the name of a female demon. Abyzou was blamed for miscarriages and infant mortality and was said to be motivated by envy , as she herself was infertile...
, abyssos, "the Deep," to which Pelagia ("she of the sea") is equivalent.
Gello is named also in works by the polymaths John of Damascus
John of Damascus
Saint John of Damascus was a Syrian monk and priest...
(7th–8th century) and Michael Psellos
Michael Psellos
Michael Psellos or Psellus was a Byzantine monk, writer, philosopher, politician and historian...
(11th century), the latter of whom notes that he has found her only in "an apocrypha
Apocrypha
The term apocrypha is used with various meanings, including "hidden", "esoteric", "spurious", "of questionable authenticity", ancient Chinese "revealed texts and objects" and "Christian texts that are not canonical"....
l Hebrew book" ascribed to Solomon and not in his usual sources for demonic names in antiquity. Psellos was one of the earliest scholars to identify Gello with the Hebrew Lilith
Lilith
Lilith is a character in Jewish mythology, found earliest in the Babylonian Talmud, who is generally thought to be related to a class of female demons Līlīṯu in Mesopotamian texts. However, Lowell K. Handy notes, "Very little information has been found relating to the Akkadian and Babylonian view...
, and says that these demons "suck blood and devour all the vital fluids which are in the little infant." The 17th-century Greek Catholic
Greek Byzantine Catholic Church
The Greek Byzantine Catholic Church is a sui iuris particular Church in full union with the Roman Catholic Church which uses the Byzantine liturgical rite in the Koine Greek and modern Greek languages...
scholar Leo Allatios
Leo Allatius
Leo Allatius was a Greek scholar, theologian and keeper of the Vatican library....
, however, criticizes Psellos and insists that the gello, Lilith and other demonic creatures should be regarded as separate and unrelated.
Etymology and origin
Walter BurkertWalter Burkert
Walter Burkert is a German scholar of Greek mythology and cult.An emeritus professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, he also has taught in the United Kingdom and the United States...
derived Gello from the Near Eastern demon Gallu
Gallu
In Sumerian and Akkadian mythology, Gallu is a great underworld demon or devil.Gallu demons hauled unfortunate victims off to the underworld...
. M.L. West
Martin Litchfield West
Martin Litchfield West is an internationally recognised scholar in classics, classical antiquity and philology...
also pointed to the Babylonian–Assyrian gallû, a word perhaps related to "ghoul," as a demonic revenant who brings sickness and death.
Because etymology in antiquity was interpretive and phonic
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
, and not based on scientific linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, the Greeks themselves might have heard the root gel-, "grin, laugh," in the sense of mocking or grimacing, like the expression often found on the face of the Gorgon
Gorgoneion
In Ancient Greece, the Gorgoneion was originally a horror-creating apotropaic pendant showing the Gorgon's head. It was assimilated by the Olympian deities Zeus and Athena: both are said to have worn it as a protective pendant...
, to which Barb linked the reproductive demons in origin. Such demons are often associated with or said to come from the sea, and demonologies identify Gyllou with Abyzou
Abyzou
In the myth and folklore of the Near East and Europe, Abyzou is the name of a female demon. Abyzou was blamed for miscarriages and infant mortality and was said to be motivated by envy , as she herself was infertile...
, whose name is related to abyssos, the abyss or "deep."
The aition of Gello
Gello appears in Greek sources as one of three reproductive demons who developed as a persona with an individual story of originOrigin myth
An origin myth is a myth that purports to describe the origin of some feature of the natural or social world. One type of origin myth is the cosmogonic myth, which describes the creation of the world...
(aition). The fears she personifies thus associate her with the Mormo
Mormo
In Greek mythology, Mormo was a spirit who bit bad children, said to have been a companion of the goddess Hecate. The name was also used to signify a female vampire-like creature in stories told to Greek children by their nurses to keep them from misbehaving. This reference is primarily found in...
and Lamia
Lamia (mythology)
In ancient Greek mythology, Lamia was a beautiful queen of Libya who became a child-eating daemon. Aristophanes claimed her name derived from the Greek word for gullet , referring to her habit of devouring children....
, whose narratives also show them to have suffered the fate that they in turn inflict on other women. Mormo, driven to insanity, killed and ate her own children; Lamia was the lover of Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
and bore him many children, but Hera
Hera
Hera was the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow and the peacock were sacred to her...
in her envy
Envy
Envy is best defined as a resentful emotion that "occurs when a person lacks another's superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it."...
killed each as it was born.
Gello was once a young woman who died a virgin. The Christian-era lexicographer
Lexicography
Lexicography is divided into two related disciplines:*Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries....
Hesychius
Hesychius of Alexandria
Hesychius of Alexandria , a grammarian who flourished probably in the 5th century CE, compiled the richest lexicon of unusual and obscure Greek words that has survived...
said that she was a ghost (eidolon) who attacked both virgins and newborn babies. The earliest mention of this demonic creature by her Greek name occurs in a fragment of Sappho
Sappho
Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life...
of Lesbos
Lesbos Island
Lesbos is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of with 320 kilometres of coastline, making it the third largest Greek island. It is separated from Turkey by the narrow Mytilini Strait....
, in which Gello is said to be "fond of children." The fragment is preserved by the 2nd-century compiler Zenobius
Zenobius
Zenobius was a Greek sophist, who taught rhetoric at Rome during the reign of Emperor Hadrian .-Biography:He was the author of a collection of proverbs in three books, still extant in an abridged form, compiled, according to the Suda, from Didymus of Alexandria and "The Tarrhaean"...
, who offers a psychological explanation:
Magic texts and amulets attest by name to the prevalence of a belief in reproductive demons in the Greco-Roman world
Greco-Roman world
The Greco-Roman world, Greco-Roman culture, or the term Greco-Roman , when used as an adjective, as understood by modern scholars and writers, refers to those geographical regions and countries that culturally were directly, protractedly and intimately influenced by the language, culture,...
. During the Byzantine period, textual evidence of the child-harming demon is most often found in exorcism
Exorcism
Exorcism is the religious practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed...
s or demonologies
Demonology
Demonology is the systematic study of demons or beliefs about demons. It is the branch of theology relating to superhuman beings who are not gods. It deals both with benevolent beings that have no circle of worshippers or so limited a circle as to be below the rank of gods, and with malevolent...
. Historian of ancient religion Sarah Iles Johnston suggests that this belief is expressed more commonly in earlier literature than has been noticed. The Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
ic epics allude to the unmarried dead, who are excluded from the Underworld
Hades
Hades , Hadēs, originally , Haidēs or , Aidēs , meaning "the unseen") was the ancient Greek god of the underworld. The genitive , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades". Eventually, the nominative came to designate the abode of the dead.In Greek mythology, Hades...
and might harm the living. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter
Homeric Hymns
The Homeric Hymns are a collection of thirty-three anonymous Ancient Greek hymns celebrating individual gods. The hymns are "Homeric" in the sense that they employ the same epic meter—dactylic hexameter—as the Iliad and Odyssey, use many similar formulas and are couched in the same dialect...
, Demeter
Demeter
In Greek mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains, the fertility of the earth, and the seasons . Her common surnames are Sito as the giver of food or corn/grain and Thesmophoros as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society...
in her role as a kourotrophic ("youth-nurturing") goddess promises to protect her hosts' infant from demonic attack in language that recalls known magical incantations. Centuries later, in Augustan Rome
Augustus
Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...
, Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
describes the practice of protecting doorways with buckthorn
Buckthorn
The Buckthorns are a genus of about 100 species of shrubs or small trees from 1-10 m tall , in the buckthorn family Rhamnaceae...
after the birth of a child to ward off striges
Strix (mythology)
Strix was the Ancient Roman and Greek word for owl. In folklore it was considered a bird of ill omen that fed on human flesh and blood, a product of metamorphosis...
, winged female demons who were thought to suck the blood of newborns. One of the twelve-and-a-half names of Gylo (see above) is Strigla, a form of the word strix as a kind of witch.
Michael Psellos says that Gello also killed pregnant women and their fetus
Fetus
A fetus is a developing mammal or other viviparous vertebrate after the embryonic stage and before birth.In humans, the fetal stage of prenatal development starts at the beginning of the 11th week in gestational age, which is the 9th week after fertilization.-Etymology and spelling variations:The...
es. Thus Gello in general blocked the cycle of reproduction. The patriarch
Patriarch
Originally a patriarch was a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family. The system of such rule of families by senior males is called patriarchy. This is a Greek word, a compound of πατριά , "lineage, descent", esp...
John of Damascus, in the treatise Peri strygnôn ("Regarding striges
Strix (mythology)
Strix was the Ancient Roman and Greek word for owl. In folklore it was considered a bird of ill omen that fed on human flesh and blood, a product of metamorphosis...
"), records a belief among the "common people," still current in his day, that ghosts called gelloudes or striges flew nocturnally, slipped into houses even when the windows and doors were barred, and strangled sleeping infants. John's use of the plural shows that Gello has become a type, rather than an individual revenant. The 14th-century Greek ecclesiastical historian
History of Christianity
The history of Christianity concerns the Christian religion, its followers and the Church with its various denominations, from the first century to the present. Christianity was founded in the 1st century by the followers of Jesus of Nazareth who they believed to be the Christ or chosen one of God...
Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos
Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopoulos
Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos, latinized as Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopulus , of Constantinople, the last of the Greek ecclesiastical historians, flourished around 1320....
said gelloudes "bring the infant from the bedroom, as if about to devour him." Leo Allatios explicitly cross-identifies striges and gelloudes, recasting the demonic or revenant gello of Eastern tradition as the witch of Western Europe, who is often marginalized by age and poverty. The transformation of the gello from the ancient "virginal reproductive demon" to an envious crone
Crone
The crone is a stock character in folklore and fairy tale, an old woman who is usually disagreeable, malicious, or sinister in manner, often with magical or supernatural associations that can make her either helpful or obstructing. She is marginalized by her exclusion from the reproductive cycle,...
occurs in the Christian era; what the virgin and crone share is their exclusion from the reproductive cycle, and their envy of fertility. The Greek folk belief
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
continued into the modern era.
Although reports of Gello's behavior are consistent, her nature is less determinate. She is regarded as a demon in exorcisms and commanded as an "unclean spirit
Unclean spirit
In English translations of the Bible, unclean spirit is a common rendering of Greek pneuma akatharton , which in its single occurrence in the Septuagint translates Hebrew ....
" (akatharton pneuma
Pneuma
Pneuma is an ancient Greek word for "breath," and in a religious context for "spirit" or "soul." It has various technical meanings for medical writers and philosophers of classical antiquity, particularly in regard to physiology, and is also used in Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible and in...
). But her aition as a human being would make a ghost of her, as did her gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
ed nature, since demons, like angels, were officially sexless in the theology of the Church
Christian theology
- Divisions of Christian theology :There are many methods of categorizing different approaches to Christian theology. For a historical analysis, see the main article on the History of Christian theology.- Sub-disciplines :...
. Johnston prefers to use the Greek word aôrôs, "untimely dead," for this form of transgressive or liminal
Liminality
Liminality is a psychological, neurological, or metaphysical subjective state, conscious or unconscious, of being on the "threshold" of or between two different existential planes, as defined in neurological psychology and in the anthropological theories of ritual by such writers as Arnold van...
soul or entity, finding the usual phrase "child-killing demon" to be misleading.
Protections against Gello
The late antiqueLate Antiquity
Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world. Precise boundaries for the period are a matter of debate, but noted historian of the period Peter Brown proposed...
magico-medical compilation Cyranides
Cyranides
The Cyranides is a compilation of Hermetic magico-medical works in Greek first put together in the 4th century. A Latin translation also exists. It has been described as a "farrago" and a texte vivant, owing to the complexities of its transmission: it has been abridged, rearranged, and supplemented...
provides defensive spells against the "frightful woman" (horrida mulier) who attacks babies. The eagle-stone or aetites
Aetites
In the magico-medical tradition of Europe and the Near East, the aetites or aetite is a stone used to promote childbirth. It is also called an eagle-stone, aquiline, or aquilaeus...
is to be worn as an amulet
Amulet
An amulet, similar to a talisman , is any object intended to bring good luck or protection to its owner.Potential amulets include gems, especially engraved gems, statues, coins, drawings, pendants, rings, plants and animals; even words said in certain occasions—for example: vade retro satana—, to...
to prevent miscarriage
Miscarriage
Miscarriage or spontaneous abortion is the spontaneous end of a pregnancy at a stage where the embryo or fetus is incapable of surviving independently, generally defined in humans at prior to 20 weeks of gestation...
, to assure timely and complication-free delivery
Childbirth
Childbirth is the culmination of a human pregnancy or gestation period with the birth of one or more newborn infants from a woman's uterus...
, and to relieve delirium
Delirium
Delirium or acute confusional state is a common and severe neuropsychiatric syndrome with core features of acute onset and fluctuating course, attentional deficits and generalized severe disorganization of behavior...
and night terror
Night terror
A night terror, also known as a sleep terror, incubus attack, or pavor nocturnus, is a parasomnia disorder that predominantly affects children, causing feelings of terror or dread, typically occur in the first few hours of sleep during stage 3 or 4 NREM sleep...
s associated with Gello and other revenants. A cross
Christian cross
The Christian cross, seen as a representation of the instrument of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, is the best-known religious symbol of Christianity...
or image of Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
might be placed by a child's bed to ward off Gello or demons in general; burning lamps
Oil lamp
An oil lamp is an object used to produce light continuously for a period of time using an oil-based fuel source. The use of oil lamps began thousands of years ago and is continued to this day....
to illuminate sacred images and incense
Incense
Incense is composed of aromatic biotic materials, which release fragrant smoke when burned. The term "incense" refers to the substance itself, rather than to the odor that it produces. It is used in religious ceremonies, ritual purification, aromatherapy, meditation, for creating a mood, and for...
were also used in the bedroom. The practice of baptizing
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
infants was thought to offer protection against demon-snatching, and specifically against the gello, according to Leo Allatios
Leo Allatius
Leo Allatius was a Greek scholar, theologian and keeper of the Vatican library....
. Allatios also records, but does not condone, the hanging of red coral
Coral (precious)
Precious coral or red coral is the common name given to Corallium rubrum and several related species of marine coral. The distinguishing characteristic of precious corals is their durable and intensely colored red or pink skeleton, which is used for making jewelry.-Habitat:Red corals grow on rocky...
or a head of garlic on the infant's cot, along with other remedies he finds too unspeakable to name.
Gello and her adversaries
In Byzantine sources, the adversary of Gello is often St. Sisinnius or Sisoe, whose defeat of her is his most renowned deed. On amulets, Sisinnius is depicted as a horseman bearing down with his spear on the female demon, who has fish- or serpent-like attributes below the waist. In one Byzantine folktale, Gello slips into a heavily guarded castleCastle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
by disguising herself as a fly on the saint's horse, since only Sisinnius could pass through the gate.
There is an Ethiopian tradition in which the sister of Sisinnius was possessed by a demon and killed newborns. When Sisinnius became a Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
, he murdered her. In a Byzantine version, Sisinnius defends his sister Melitene's children from the demon Gyllou. A sample narrative of Melitene's travails against the gelu may be found online.
A 15th-century manuscript describes an encounter between the archangel Michael
Michael (archangel)
Michael , Micha'el or Mîkhā'ēl; , Mikhaḗl; or Míchaël; , Mīkhā'īl) is an archangel in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic teachings. Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Lutherans refer to him as Saint Michael the Archangel and also simply as Saint Michael...
and Gylou:
Although the name Gylou is not found on any surviving amulets, Michael is the adversary Gylou encounters most often in medieval Byzantine texts.
Envy
Johnston offers an interpretation of the reproductive demons' social significance:The protections against Gellou, as an embodiment of envy, resemble those against the evil eye
Evil eye
The evil eye is a look that is believed by many cultures to be able to cause injury or bad luck for the person at whom it is directed for reasons of envy or dislike...
. One exorcism text dating from around the turn of the 19th–20th century gives Baskania as a name for the gello as well as for the evil eye.
The gello and the Church
Leo Allatius
Leo Allatius was a Greek scholar, theologian and keeper of the Vatican library....
in his work De Graecorum hodie quorundam opinionibus ("On the beliefs of the Greeks today"). Textual sources he collected on the Gello included Sappho's poem, the Suda
Suda
The Suda or Souda is a massive 10th century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Suidas. It is an encyclopedic lexicon, written in Greek, with 30,000 entries, many drawing from ancient sources that have since been lost, and often...
, exorcisms, a church history, the Life of Patriarch Tarasios of Constantinople
Patriarch Tarasios of Constantinople
Saint Tarasios was Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from December 25, 784 until his death in 806.-Background:...
written by Ignatius the Deacon, and proverb
Proverb
A proverb is a simple and concrete saying popularly known and repeated, which expresses a truth, based on common sense or the practical experience of humanity. They are often metaphorical. A proverb that describes a basic rule of conduct may also be known as a maxim...
s. Allatios's purpose was to demonstrate the continuity of customs and morals, but also to show that these beliefs distorted or ran contrary to Christian doctrine. Sometimes the acts characteristic of Gello were attributed to "poor and miserable old crones," who could be accused in court as gelloudes and might even claim or confess to have acted as such. In his Life of Tarasios, Ignatius the Deacon recounts an actual case in which two women were charged as gelloudes and brought before his subject's father, who acquitted
Acquittal
In the common law tradition, an acquittal formally certifies the accused is free from the charge of an offense, as far as the criminal law is concerned. This is so even where the prosecution is abandoned nolle prosequi...
them. Penance
Penance
Penance is repentance of sins as well as the proper name of the Roman Catholic, Orthodox Christian, and Anglican Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation/Confession. It also plays a part in non-sacramental confession among Lutherans and other Protestants...
might be prescribed for confessed
Confession
This article is for the religious practice of confessing one's sins.Confession is the acknowledgment of sin or wrongs...
gelloudes, and is found specified in a few Nomocanon
Nomocanon
Nomocanon is a collection of Ecclesiastical law, consisting of the elements from both the Civil law and the Canon law.-Byzantine nomocanons:Collections of this kind were found only in Eastern law...
s, or collections of ecclesiastical law. Michael Psellos, however, rejected the notion that human beings could transform into demonic beings, and so there would be no need for a particular penance; the official position of Orthodoxy was that such creatures did not exist.
Despite her official non-existence, the gello is named in exorcisms, which required the attendance of a priest
Priesthood (Catholic Church)
The ministerial orders of the Catholic Church include the orders of bishops, deacons and presbyters, which in Latin is sacerdos. The ordained priesthood and common priesthood are different in function and essence....
, and in prayer formularies
Prayer forms (Catholic Church)
Various prayer forms are in use in the Roman Catholic Church.- Blessing and adoration :The prayer of blessing is man’s response to God’s gifts...
. The Virgin Mary
Mary (mother of Jesus)
Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...
is invoked against the child-harming demon gylo:
In one exorcism of the gello, no fewer than 36 saints are invoked by name along with Mary and the "318 Saints of the Fathers", with a final addendum of "all the saints." Some prayers resemble magic spells in attempting to command or compel the saints, rather than humbly requesting aid. Exorcisms emphasize that Christian families deserve exclusive protection. Gello continued to be named in exorcisms into the 20th century.
In early Christianity, a program of exorcism was preliminary to baptism as a kind of purification
Ritual purification
Ritual purification is a feature of many religions. The aim of these rituals is to remove specifically defined uncleanliness prior to a particular type of activity, and especially prior to the worship of a deity...
and to drive away evil spirits, and not necessarily because the person was thought to be possessed
Demonic possession
Demonic possession is held by many belief systems to be the control of an individual by a malevolent supernatural being. Descriptions of demonic possessions often include erased memories or personalities, convulsions, “fits” and fainting as if one were dying...
. The ambiguous state of the unbaptized is expressed by conflicting views of the infant: that the newborn had not sinned, and that the newborn nonetheless bore the pollution of original sin and was thus closer to the Devil than to God. The travel writer Sonnini de Manoncourt
Charles-Nicolas-Sigisbert Sonnini de Manoncourt
Charles-Nicolas-Sigisbert Sonnini de Manoncourt was a French naturalist. Between 1799 to 1808 he wrote 127 volumes of the Histoire naturelle. Noteworthy among these, especially for herpetologists, is Histoire naturelle des Reptiles, avec figures desinées d'après nature, in four volumes, which he...
recorded that the Greeks called an unbaptized child drako (or dracon, "serpent
Serpent (symbolism)
Serpent in Latin means: Rory Collins :&, in turn, from the Biblical Hebrew word of: "saraf" with root letters of: which refers to something burning-as, the pain of poisonous snake's bite was likened to internal burning.This word is commonly used in a specifically mythic or religious context,...
, python
Python (genus)
Python, from the Greek word , is a genus of non-venomous pythons found in Africa, Asia and Australia. Currently, 7 species are recognised. A member of this group, P. reticulatus, is among the longest snakes known.-Geographic range:...
, dragon
Dragon
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
"). At baptism, the name Drako is shed and replaced with a Christian name. The names of Gylo include Chomodracaena, containing drakaina, "female dragon." In one text dealing with the gello, she is banished to the mountains to drink the blood of the drako; in another, she becomes a drako and in this form attacks human beings. In other texts, the child itself is addressed as Abouzin (Abyzou
Abyzou
In the myth and folklore of the Near East and Europe, Abyzou is the name of a female demon. Abyzou was blamed for miscarriages and infant mortality and was said to be motivated by envy , as she herself was infertile...
).
In ancient and medieval medical texts, a child was thought to be conceived from the father's "seed" and the mother's blood. The gello, herself infertile and envious, aimed to drink blood, the source of fertility, and was attracted to the dangerous time of birth and recovery in part because the new mother was regarded in Judaeo-Christian tradition as unclean; this state of pollution was congenial to demons. As long as the infant remained exclusively within the birth mother's sphere of influence, it was vulnerable to female demons seeking blood. In the story of Melitene, sister of the saints Sisinnios and Sisynodorus, the child is in peril until it is "returned" to the hands of men. In one version, the gello swallows the child and must be forced by the male saints to regurgitate it alive. This cycle — death by swallowing, regurgitation, new life — may be symbolized in initiation ceremonies such as baptism, which marked the separation of the child from the taint of its mother's gello-attracting blood.
Modern Luciferianism
Gyllou is featured in a major text of modern LuciferianismLuciferianism
Luciferianism is a belief system that venerates the essential characteristics that are affixed to Lucifer, originally a name referring to the planet Venus when it rises ahead of the Sun....
, a belief system that venerates Lucifer
Lucifer
Traditionally, Lucifer is a name that in English generally refers to the devil or Satan before being cast from Heaven, although this is not the original meaning of the term. In Latin, from which the English word is derived, Lucifer means "light-bearer"...
. In The Bible of the Adversary by Michael W. Ford, she is associated with Lilith and represents Vampyrism
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
as a desire for eternal life.
Modern fiction and popular culture
- Gello (here spelled "Gilou") is the primary antagonist of Jessie D. Eaker's short story The Name of the Demoness, featured in the sixth Sword and Sorceress anthology. She appears as a dog-headed woman with snakes for fingers who steals newborn babies, and her many names are a major plot point.
- The "gylou" or "handmaiden devil" is an all-female species of devil in the Pathfinder Roleplaying GamePathfinder Roleplaying GameThe Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is a fantasy role-playing game first published in 2009 by Paizo Publishing...
. They are also known as "Maids of Miscarriage" and are noted to particularly hate babies.
List of related demons
Scholarly discussions of Gello associate her with and analyze the meaning of her narrative traditions in relation to the following demons and supernatural beings:- GalluGalluIn Sumerian and Akkadian mythology, Gallu is a great underworld demon or devil.Gallu demons hauled unfortunate victims off to the underworld...
- AbyzouAbyzouIn the myth and folklore of the Near East and Europe, Abyzou is the name of a female demon. Abyzou was blamed for miscarriages and infant mortality and was said to be motivated by envy , as she herself was infertile...
- LilithLilithLilith is a character in Jewish mythology, found earliest in the Babylonian Talmud, who is generally thought to be related to a class of female demons Līlīṯu in Mesopotamian texts. However, Lowell K. Handy notes, "Very little information has been found relating to the Akkadian and Babylonian view...
- LamiaLamia (mythology)In ancient Greek mythology, Lamia was a beautiful queen of Libya who became a child-eating daemon. Aristophanes claimed her name derived from the Greek word for gullet , referring to her habit of devouring children....
- MormoMormoIn Greek mythology, Mormo was a spirit who bit bad children, said to have been a companion of the goddess Hecate. The name was also used to signify a female vampire-like creature in stories told to Greek children by their nurses to keep them from misbehaving. This reference is primarily found in...
- EmpusaEmpusaEmpusa is a demigoddess of Greek mythology. In later incarnations she appeared as a species of monsters commanded by Hecate ....
Selected bibliography
- Barb, A.A. "Antaura. The Mermaid and the Devil's Grandmother: A Lecture." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 29 (1966) 1–23.
- Hartnup, Karen. On the Beliefs of the Greeks: Leo Allatios and Popular Orthodoxy. Brill, 2004. Chapters 4–6 on the gello. Limited preview online.
- Johnston, Sarah Iles. Restless Dead: Encounters Between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece. University of California Press, 1999. Limited preview online.
- Naveh, Joseph, and Shaul Shaked. Amulets and Magic Bowls: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1985.
- Spier, Jeffrey. "Medieval Byzantine Magical Amulets and Their Tradition." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 56 (1993) 25–62. Full text available online.
Further reading
- Greenfield, R.P.H. Traditions in Late Byzantine Demonology. Amsterdam, 1988, p. 182ff. on Gylou.
- Greenfield, R.P.H. “Saint Sisinnios, the Archangel Michael and the Female Demon Gylou: the Typology of the Greek Literary Stories,” Βυζαντινά 15 (1989) 83–142.
- West, D.R. "Gello and Lamia: Two Hellenic Daemons of Semitic Origin." Ugarit-Forschungen 23 (1991) 361–368.