Siren

The Sirens were powerful female monsters of the Greek world, beings whose enchanting song lured sailors to crash their ships upon the rocks. They appeared as beautiful, youthful women with long flowing hair, yet beneath that guise their faces were decomposing flesh, and they fought with a host of magical powers. Kratos first hunted them across the Desert of Lost Souls. (God of War)

Song and curse#

The Sirens were monsters whose song lured sailors to crash their boats against the rocks. From a distance they seemed beautiful, youthful women crowned with long, flowing dark hair, but seen close their faces were revealed as decomposing flesh, eyeless and noseless, a sharp-toothed mouth amid dishevelled hair. (God of War)

In the older tales they were daughters of the river god Achelous. Some said they had once been companions of Persephone, and that when Hades carried her off and they did not come to her aid, the grieving Demeter turned them into birds with the heads of women. The heroes of Greece learned to pass them by: Jason and the Argonauts, sailing for the Golden Fleece, were saved when the divine singer Orpheus drowned out the Sirens' song with his lyre, and Odysseus heard their call bound fast to the mast of his ship while his crew's ears were stopped with wax. It was fated that the Sirens would live only until someone heard their song and sailed safely past, and so when Odysseus went by unharmed, they threw themselves into the sea. (Odyssey; Argonautica; Fabulae)

The Sirens of the desert and the temples#

The Sirens were not often met in the age of the gods, but where they appeared they were deadly, usually coming in pairs and fighting with a variety of magical powers. Kratos first hunted them in the Desert of Lost Souls, where Athena charged him to find and destroy three Desert Sirens by following their song, so that the way to Cronos might be opened. These three floated gracefully across the sands in flowing dresses, singing their lethal, enchanting song until the warrior drew near, then turning swift and savage, hurling blue energy and shrieking to stun. Other Sirens were found afterward throughout Pandora's Temple and, in later years, across the Island of Creation and the heights and labyrinths of Olympus. (God of War; God of War II; God of War III)

Long after, in Alfheim, Kratos told his son the tale of the Sirens. His ship's stores had run dry, he said, and some of the sailors had drunk seawater in their desperation, until the sea-madness made them believe the Sirens singing nearby were their own wives and daughters waiting at home. The maddened men tried to steer the ship onto the rocks, and Kratos and the others were forced to throw them overboard, where the Sirens fell upon them and devoured them. (God of War (2018))

The breeds of Siren#

Many kinds of Siren were known across Greece. The Siren Sibyls, the first that Kratos ever fought, wielded lightning, hurling bolts and electric wails and vanishing across short distances. The Siren Widows of the Island of Creation drifted like dead women in ragged blue, loosing paralysing cries and a shockwave scream so powerful that Kratos turned it against Zeus himself upon the Summit of Sacrifice. The Siren Seductresses, minions of Olympus veiled in red, could levitate, turn nearly invisible, and loose a shriek that drained a warrior's very magic. Even in death their power lingered, for their souls could be summoned to scream again upon their enemies. (God of War: Ascension; God of War II; God of War III)