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In Hinduism, Pūtanā (lit. 'putrefaction') is a rakshasi (demoness), who was killed by the infant-god Krishna. Putana disguises as a young, beautiful woman and tries to kill the god by breast-feeding poisoned milk; however Krishna sucks her milk as well as her life via her breasts. Putana is also considered as a foster-mother of Krishna as she breast-fed him. By offering her milk, Putana had performed "the supreme act of maternal devotion", in the shadow of her evil motives. The legend is told and retold in Hindu scriptures and some Indian books, which portray her variously as an evil hag or a demoness who surrendered herself to Krishna, though she initially came with evil motives.

Putana is interpreted as an infantile disease or bird, symbolizing danger to an infant or desire respectively, and even as a symbolic bad mother. She is included in a group of malevolent Hindu mother goddesses called the Matrikas and also in the group of Yoginis and Grahinis (Seizers). Ancient Indian medical texts prescribe her worship to protect children from diseases. A group of multiple Putanas is mentioned in ancient Indian texts. (Full article...)

• ... that the demon Maha Sohona, whose head has been replaced with that of a bear, haunts graveyards and feasts on human flesh?

• ... that in Chinese mythology, Wu Gang had to chop down a tree on the moon that always healed itself, forcing him to keep trying forever?

• ... that the cult of Kukulkan, the Yucatec Maya feathered serpent deity, was the first Mesoamerican religion to transcend earlier linguistic and ethnic divisions?

• ...that in Greek mythology, Antiope was the only Amazon known to have married?

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In Greek mythology, sirens (Ancient Greek: singular: Σειρήν, Seirḗn; plural: Σειρῆνες, Seirênes) are female humanlike beings with alluring voices; they appear in a scene in the Odyssey in which Odysseus saves his crew's lives. Roman poets place them on some small islands called Sirenum scopuli. In some later, rationalized traditions, the literal geography of the "flowery" island of Anthemoessa, or Anthemusa, is fixed: sometimes on Cape Pelorum and at others in the islands known as the Sirenuse, near Paestum, or in Capreae. All such locations were surrounded by cliffs and rocks.

Sirens continued to be used as a symbol of the dangerous temptation embodied by women regularly throughout Christian art of the medieval era. "Siren" can also be used as a slang term for a woman considered both very attractive and dangerous. (Full article...)

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