Abyzou

Across the sources summarized, Abyzou is presented as a namable, personified cause of obstetric and neonatal misfortune rather than as a single unified origin-myth. The Testament of Solomon portrays her among a roster of hostile supernatural agents whom Solomon binds and interrogates; that narrative emphasizes her sleepless wandering in search of women about to give birth. Modern scholarship (A. A. Barb, as cited in secondary summaries) has proposed a historical link between the name-form and primeval-sea terms (Mesopotamian Abzu, Greek ábyssos), a hypothesis offered as an interpretive etymology rather than a primary-source self-identification. Regional syncretism is evident in later identifications (e.g., Gylou in Byzantine contexts, Alabasandria in Coptic Egypt) and the recurring motif that she possesses many names, a feature used in magico-medical strategies to control her.

Testamental and amuletic descriptions present Abyzou as a female monstrous figure with serpentine or fish-like features and a troubling visage. The Testament of Solomon (as Obizuth) describes her as having 'a greenish gleaming face with dishevelled serpent-like hair' while the remainder of her body is 'covered by darkness' and she does not sleep. Amulet iconography often renders her with fish- or serpent-like attributes and shows her bound, kneeling with hands tied behind her back, whipped by a standing figure (identified as Solomon or an archangel figure) or trampled beneath a horseman; some commentators note that the dominant amulet image that subdues the figure has womb-like resonances, though that reading is interpretive and tentative in the sources.

Sources consistently attribute to Abyzou a focus on childbirth-related harm: she is said to seek out women in labor and to be responsible for strangling newborns, causing miscarriages and infant mortality. The Testament of Solomon additionally credits her with inflicting deafness, eye trouble, obstructions of the throat, madness, and bodily pains. In magico-medical contexts she functions as a named affliction who can be compelled to 'flee' when confronted with authoritative names, images, or seals; narrative and amuletic traditions emphasize that knowledge or inscription of controlling names and the presence of Solomon/archangelic authority can constrain or expel her.