The female vampire, sometimes an alluring femme fatale, other times an ugly monstrous demon—but always defined by her sex and sexuality. In Dracula, Bram Stoker writes of the flirtatious Lucy Westenra, who, after having been bitten by a vampire, becomes a seductive temptress who attacks children. Others, like Geraldine from Coleridge’s poem, “Christabel”, and Sheridan Le Fanu’s eponymous Carmilla, are more mysterious and ethereal, often befriending and enchanting their victims, while slowly feeding off them. While the mesmerizing Countess Zaleska, the main character in Universal Pictures’ 1936
film, Dracula’s Daughter, struggles with her vampiric, and perhaps sexual, identity, before eventually succumbing to it.
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Many roads lead to Lilith as one of the origins of these myths. Lilith, popularly known as the first wife of Adam, can possibly be traced to the ardat lili, or harlot, of ancient Sumer, located in what would later become Babylonia and is now southern Iraq (Britannica T. E., Sumer, 2007).
According to Dr. Roderick F. McGillis, Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Calgary, the ardat lili were demons used as an act of vengeance and punishment by the Sumerian goddess, Innini, who would later evolve into the Babylonian goddess Ishtar. But this act of punishment was not a traditional one of pain and fear, but rather one of seduction. The ardat lili would seduce men by visiting them at night, in their dreams—as dreams held special significance for the Babylonians. She was a succubus.
Also considered to be a night demon, some texts describe her as one of three demons who personified destructive weather (McGillis, 1979). Then, as time progressed, and cultures changed and evolved through wars and conquests and migration, so did Lilith’s story.
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In 587 B.C.E. the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar II, conquered the southern Kingdom of Judah. Babylonian forces destroyed much of Jerusalem, including Solomon’s Temple, also known as the First Temple, in which the Ark of the Covenant was stored. Many of the inhabitants of the southern Kingdom of Judah were exiled—and deported to Babylonia (Jarus, 2022).
But the horrors inflicted upon the Judeans by the Babylonians did not stop the constancy of people learning from and influencing one another. Cuneiform tablets discovered in Iraq illustrate that the Judean exiles adopted and adapted some elements from the Babylonians. In an article published in Live Science, Kathleen Abraham, a professor at the University of Leuven in Belgium, is quoted as saying that "tablets show that the exiles and their descendants had, at least to some extent, adopted the local language, script and legal traditions of Babylonia a relatively short time after their arrival there" (Jarus, 2022).
McGillis believes this is also when Lilith was introduced into Jewish culture, writing that, “the Talmud states that the Jews brought the name of the angels from Babylon” (McGillis, 1979).
“Talmud” is a Hebrew term meaning “study” or “learning”, and is the name given to a collection of sacred laws and teachings (Dimitrovsky, 2022), compiled between the third and sixth centuries (Shurpin, n.d.), which are second only to the Hebrew Bible in Jewish religious tradition (Dimitrovsky, 2022).
In the Talmud, Lilith is described as a demonic creature possessing wings and long hair (Steinsaltz, n.d.), and warns against sleeping alone for fear of being attacked by her (Steinsaltz, Koren Noé Talmud, n.d.).
The Book of Isaiah also mentions Lilith as a demon when prophesizing the destruction of Edom, an ancient land which was settled by the Edomites around the 13th century BCE and bordered ancient Israel. Edom was located in what is now southwestern Jordan (Britannica T. E., Edom, 2017). The chapter of Isaiah which mentions Lilith was likely written during or after the Jews were exiled to Babylon in 586 BCE (Blank, 2023). Lilith was mentioned as part of the death and horrors that will settle upon Edom:
For the Lord is angry at all the nations, And His wrath is against all their armies; He has utterly doomed them, He has given them over to slaughter. So their slain will be thrown out, And the stench of their corpses will rise, And the mountains will flow with their blood. …
For the Lord has a day of vengeance, A year of retribution for the cause of Zion. The streams [of Edom] will be turned into pitch, And its dust into brimstone, And its land will become burning pitch.
The burning will not be quenched night or day; Its smoke will go up forever. From generation to generation it will lie in ruins; No one will ever again pass through it.
…
Thorns will come up in its fortified palaces,
Nettles and brambles in its fortified cities;
It will be a haunt for jackals,
An abode for ostriches.
The creatures of the desert will encounter jackals
And the hairy goat will call to its kind;
Indeed, Lilith will settle there
And find herself a place of rest.
The above is quoted from the Amplified Bible’s English translation. This version, like many other translations, including the International Standard Version and the Common English Bible, translates this demonic creature finding rest in the hellish, barren wasteland that Edom will become as Lilith. Others, such as the Christian Standard Bible, instead translate the creature as a night bird, and still others, such as the King James Version, translate it as a screech owl. (Isaiah 34:14 - Bible Gateway)
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And, finally, the late fourth-to early fifth century Latin translation, the Vulgate, translates the demon as lamia (Isaias 34:14 VULGATE - Et occurrent daemonia onocentauris, et - Bible Gateway).
Screech owl, night bird, and lamia will all be relevant to Lilith’s connection to, influence on, or eventual conflation with, various female Greek vampiric creatures that we will later discuss, as these terms illustrate how these mythological creatures most probably evolved from, or at least became conflated with, Lilith.
There are two other separate demons that I think influence Lilith’s mythology, with Lilith becoming conflated with, or at least adapting some of the following two demons’ characteristics.
The first demon that would come to affect Lilith’s mythology is the dragon or serpent Mušḫuššû, which originated in Sumerian mythology. Mušḫuššû means “fearsome” or “savage snake” and is a dragon, but has parts of other animals, as well (Langdon, 1934) as evidenced by its Neo-Assyrian period-depiction in relief on a stone slab that was located in the North Palace in Nineveh (Watanabe, 2015), where it was depicted as having the body of a snake, the front legs of a lion, and the back legs of an eagle (Lobell, 2019). Nineveh was located in what was now Mosul, Iraq (Mallowan, 2023).
Though the use of Mušḫuššû on the gate at the North Palace at Nineveh was as late as the seventh century BCE, the use of Mušḫuššû as a charm or emblem to guard against or ward off enemies had been used since at least the 22nd century BCE. For example, Gudea was one of many rulers who came to rule the various independent city-states in Southern Mesopotamia after the collapse of the Akkadian Empire (Statue of Gudea, n.d.). Gudea was the ruler of the city-state Lagash, which is located in what is now Southern Iraq (Lagash, n.d.). Gudea devoted much of his reign to rebuilding many of the great temples of Lagash. Being a great ruler and a great man, he then installed many great statues of himself within these great temples (Statue of Gudea, n.d.).
And on one of these temples was an emblem was a hissing Mušḫuššû. Gudea dreamt that he received omens and divine instructions for the building of new temple honor of Ningirsu (The Cylinders of Gudea, 2017), the god of thunder, floods, and rainstorms (Ningirsu, n.d.). These omens and divine instructions, along with interpretations of Gudean’s dreams, were recorded for posterity in cuneiform on at least 2 large clay cylinders. Discovered in 1877 and housed in the Louvre Museum (Gudea Cylinder B, 2022), the Cylinders of Gudea, as they have come to be known, are composed of two nearly complete clay cylinders and 10 unplaced fragments (The Cylinders of Gudea, 2017). The text written on Gudea Cylinder A describes the use of Mušḫuššû (written as the Sumerian MUŠ.ḪUŠ) as one of the design elements on the door to protect the temple—hissing at a wild bull (Watanabe, 2015).
Though roughly 1500 years separate when Gudea ruled and when the North Palace in Nineveh was a functioning palace, Mušḫuššû, nonetheless, was the creature disparate rulers used to guard their temple and palace, respectively.
As I said earlier, when discussing the Judeans adopting and adapting mythological elements from the Babylonians, both the Jewish people and the Babylonians were influenced by the Sumerians. According to S. Langdon:
Sumerian religion was known in Phoenicia, Syria, and Canaan before 2000 B.C., and cults of Sumerian deities were firmly established in Canaan before the final occupation by the Hebrews. … Jerusalem itself was an ancient seat of sun-worship, which persisted throughout Hebrew history. … When the Hebrew people entered Canaan the Sumerian demonology was already firmly established among the Canaanites… (Langdon, S. (1934).
And, so, the mythology of Mušḫuššû evolved, with S. Langdon arguing that Mušḫuššû evolved into Tiamat. Tiamat, whose name comes from the Akkadian word meaning the sea (Eldridge, 2023), is a mythic character from the Babylonian Epic of Creation. Also known as the Enuma Elish and written on seven tablets that were created no later than the 12th century BCE, the Babylonian Epic of Creation contains many parallels with Genesis and Exodus (The Enuma Elish, n.d.).
According to the Enuma Elish, in the beginning, there was nothing but a chaos of darkness and water. This darkness and water would later be adapted into Tehom in Genesis, with Tehom being the Hebrew word for “the deep." Indeed, Tiamat is a cognate to the Hebrew word Tehom (Gordon, 2022). After a war between the gods, Tiamat’s slain body was cut in two and used to create the universe, with half of it used to create the heavens themselves (Eldridge, 2023).
Creating the heavens allowed for the introduction of order into the chaos (Gordon, 2022). The sources conflict on whether Tiamat was already portrayed as a female dragon in the Epic of Creation, with S. Langdon (Langdon, 1934) and the Rev. A.E. Whatham (Whatham, 1910) publishing in academic journals that Tiamat was indeed portrayed as a female dragon in this creation myth, and with the Encyclopedia Britannica stating that it wasn’t until later that she was portrayed as such (Eldridge, 2023). So, it makes it difficult to discern quite when Tiamat as a serpent or dragon may have started influencing Lilith’s mythology. Interestingly, however, S. Langdon further claims that Mušḫuššû was also later adapted into Hebrew mythology as Leviathan, the “coiling serpent of the sea.”
The second demon that influenced Lilith’s mythology was the Akkadian demon Lamashtu, also known as Dimme in Sumerian mythology. Lamashtu was the daughter of the sky god, Anu, who is described by archaeologist and curator, Dr. Prudence Oliver Harper (Prudence Oliver Harper, 2023), as “the greatest of Mesopotamian gods” (Harper, 1985). Amulets made of obsidian, a volcanic rock, and estimated to date from the second century BCE to the 8th century BCE, were designed to act as talisman and ward off Lamashtu. Some of the amulets show Lamashtu to be a composite demon, with the torso of a human, the head and paws of a lion, and the clawed feet of a Zu bird, a bird which Dr. Harper describes as “rapacious”.
Lamashtu was treated with great respect on these amulets, being addressed as “exalted lady”, and she was sometimes depicted with the animals most often associated with her, the dog and the pig (Harper, 1985).
But for what evil deeds was Lamashtu responsible? Lamashtu was basically responsible for all sorts of horrible happenings—from disturbing sleep and causing nightmares to killing foliage and infesting rivers and streams. But she is most notorious for causing fevers and miscarriages, slaying children, and drinking the blood and eating the flesh of men (Britannica T. E., 2023).
The late Assyriologist, Dr. Stephen Herbert Langdon, connects Lamashtu to the Sumerian Lamme (incorrectly cited in podcast as Dr. William Sherwood Fox, who wrote the Greek section of the compilation). He describes Lamme as “the most dreaded of all Sumerian demons … the female vampire who slew children, drank the blood of men, and ate their flesh” (Langdon S. H., 1931).
S. Langdon discusses Lamme further when examining what I am assuming are Sumerian seals, describing a woman in childbirth being attacked by a serpent-headed devil. It’s interesting that Lamme’s described as serpent-headed here, because Lamashtu’s description as a composite lion-human-bird-creature matches nothing reptilian. Fortunately for the woman in childbirth, two priests protect her at her head, and curse the demon, providing her with food, and send her away on an ass to the netherworld. Which, let’s face it—doesn’t seem like that bad of a send off. Be off with you! But here—take some food for the road, just a little something to snack on in case you get peckish. We will continue to discuss Lamme when we move onto its continuation in Greek form, the Lamia. And if you remember, I stated earlier that the late fourth-to early fifth century Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate, translated Lilith, or screech owl, in the description of the destruction of Edom, into lamia.
At some point, with cultures mixing, Lilith began to take on some of these serpentine and child-killing characteristics. Drinking blood and eating flesh will also start becoming common in other mythological creatures that have connections to Lilith.
So, as we move forward and look into other similar female demons, note that many have both serpentine and child-killing attributes. Lilith is often seen as a singular female demon. But these demons are also variously described as appearing as male, and as inhabiting the dreams of either sex. And, akin to the female blood sucking creatures we will soon discuss, these demons also tortured children.
An 1888 expedition to the ancient Sumerian city of Nippur, located approximately 160 km south of Baghdad, produced the discovery of more than 100 bowls that were inscribed with incantations, functioning as exorcism texts, written in one of three Aramaic dialectics (Montgomery, 2010). These bowls probably date from the 6th to 7th centuries A.D., though it has been suggested that they may date from as early as the mid-4th century and as late as the 8th century (Butts, n.d.).
According to Dr. James A. Montgomery, scholar and clergyman, who published a history and translation of 40 of the bowls in 1913, “bowl-magic is in part the lineal descendant of the old Babylonian sorcery while at the same time … it takes its place in that great field of Hellenistic magic which pervaded the whole of the western world at the beginning of the Christian era” (Montgomery, 2010). There are a variety of angels invoked for protection in the incantations, including Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, and Michael (Montgomery, 2010).
It is obvious from these incantations that Lilith was considered one of the main demons plaguing houses. In the translations of these texts, Lilith seems to be a species of demon, rather than an individual demon, as there are incantations aimed at multiple Liliths, both male and female; though the male of the species is referred to as Lili, while Lilith seems to refer both to the female of the species and the name of the species of demon as a whole (Montgomery, 2010). One of the texts describes Lilith as “appear[ing] to mankind, to men in the likeness of women, to women in the likeness of men, and with mankind they lie by night and by day” (Montgomery, 2010). Another states that they are naked with their hair disheveled and falling loosely behind their backs (Montgomery, 2010).
Not only do these Liliths, who are referred to in the texts as “evil” and “mighty”, plague the adults of the houses, but also the children. Liliths are described as “plaguing boys and girls” (Montgomery, 2010). One incantation urges the demons to “kill not their children” (Montgomery, 2010).
Lilith’s most well-known role in modern times, being the first wife of the Biblical Adam, did not come until the Middle Ages. The Alphabet of Ben Sira is an eleventh century Midrash of Persian or Arabic origin (Bernstein, 1993). A Midrash, for those unfamiliar, is a mode of Biblical interpretation prominent in Talmudic literature, according to Encyclopedia Britannica (Britannica T. E., Midrash, 2023).
In The Alphabet of Ben Sira, Lilith was created prior to Eve, and was created out of earth simultaneously to Adam. However, Lilith wanted to be equal to Adam and did not want to be subservient to him in any manner, including sexual intercourse. Indeed, Lilith refused to lie beneath Adam in the missionary position (Bernstein, 1993).
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Well, that was apparently the straw that broke the camel’s back for Adam. Adam, handling things in not the most mature way, told on his wife to God, who scolded Lilith for her brazenness. Lilith then blasphemed by uttering the Tetragrammaton (Bernstein, 1993). The Tetragrammaton is a 4-letter Hebrew word that translates into the name Jehovah. “Because of the perceived holiness of God’s name, many observant Jews never uttered it aloud” (Drummond, 2023). Indeed, according to BiblicalArchaeology.org., in the third Indiana Jones film, if the Holy Grail’s booby traps had really been created by someone of Joseph of Arimathea’s time, Indy should have only needed to walk on four letters—YHWH—instead of the letters for the word Jehovah that are used in the film … you remember the part I’m talking about—he first steps on the “j” and nearly falls into the abyss, but then remembers the Latin of Jehovah begins with an “I”.
Anyway, Lilith dares to sin and speaks God’s Holy Name. As punishment for this behavior, God sends Lilith to live at the bottom of the Red Sea to live as a demon, where she takes other demons as lovers . In Medieval times, she came to personify lust, often portrayed as a homewrecker. It’s easy to see why such a telling would spur the imagination. And it does to Lilith, in some ways, what Mary Magdalene, had done to her story.
It is debated by scholars exactly what role Mary Magdalene had within Jesus’ life and ministry. I believe that she was an influential disciple of Jesus. Now, the story of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute, which occurred by confusing and conflating other Marys present in the Bible with Mary Magdalene, is also a powerful story, because it’s one of forgiveness, and understanding, and acceptance. And it’s one of redemption. But it also served to undermine one of the few important and influential female figures in Jesus’s life and within His movement.
Lilith’s story sort of does the same, though Lilith was never a positive figure and there is no redemption. But sex is used to undermine the strength of a woman. And where sex and virility are signs of strength for a man, sex is a sign of weakness and moral failing for a woman. And it uses Lilith’s strength, her desire for equality, to show that that is what makes her monstrous, and that it is her strength that makes her an improper woman. Because to be on top of her husband in a sexual position could, I suppose, be seen to usurp his position of dominance. And that if she is capable of blaspheming against God, which she does figuratively when she does not lie beneath her husband, and then literally when she utters the Tetragrammaton, then obviously she is demonizing herself. And so she is literally turned by God into a demon, who later personifies lust, and child killing, and husband stealing, for daring to be equal to a man.
Lilith has been represented in Western art over the centuries mostly as a personification of lust and temptation. Some, such as McGillis and Dr. Jane Schuyler, see the creature illustrated in Michelangelo’s Temptation and Expulsion on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, a creature described by Schuyler as “half woman and half serpent [and] as a male having ‘legs transformed into tails’. Writers through the centuries … have discussed this female as a male and have called her the devil, Satan, and the serpent. Her female sex and the twinship with blond Adam suggest that she is … the awesome Lilith” (Schuyler, 1990). Indeed, the incantations on the bowls found in Nippur note that the species of Lilith demons can be both male or female, or could perhaps change its sex from one to the other—so perhaps part of the threat of Lilith was her capacity to be both male and female, and perhaps inspiration for her later need for equality when she became the first wife of Adam came from this male/female duality.
Additionally, Lilith briefly appears in the Walpurgis Night scene in Goethe’s 1808 play, Faust: A Tragedy, again as an evil temptress, frightening even Mephistopheles, though by the mid-19th century, she would be reimagined by the English painter and poet, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, as a young woman who admires her own reflection while combing her hair. This 19th century artistic change from a woman of supernatural evil to a woman of flesh and blood whose vanity and narcissism harmed those, particularly the men, around her, would mirror the change vampires would go through at the beginning of the 20th century, which we will discuss will at the end of the episode.
Though vampires certainly weren’t always sexy or sexual, this sexuality and temptation as exhibited by Lilith would not only remain a trait of female vampires, but, by the dawn of the 20th century, would become associated vampires in general. For examples, one has only to think of Anne Rice’s vampires or the glistening vampires from Twilight.
But before we explore a few of the other myths that are, not only connected to Lilith, but are also interconnected with each other, and examine how they’ve influenced our modern understanding of female vampirism, I thought it would be important to quickly explore why these myths exist in the first place.
According to classical scholar Dr. Heta Björklund:
In the pre-modern period, pregnancy and childbirth posed the gravest threat to women’s lives. Both maternal and child mortality were high, and the deaths of women and children were easily attributed to outside forces that killed pregnant women and either killed or stole newborn infants. One of the functions of the child-killing demons was to transform this looming threat into something tangible that could be fought (Björklund, 2017).
Apparently, in Antiquity, the uterus was viewed as a living organism, with a will of its own. It possessed not only the ability to wander about one’s body on its own, but also the power to shapeshift (Björklund, 2017). Indeed, ancient writers described the uterus as an octopus, with the fallopian tubes representing tentacles (Björklund, 2017) Amulets were used to calm and placate the uterus to help bring about a safe birth (Björklund, 2017)
Björklund sees a reflection in the uterus and the demons when viewing what she sees as the uterus’ ability to metamorphose and the demons’ ability to do the same:
… the uterus was a living being, capable of metamorphosis…. It seems apparent that the uterus, when unable to conceive or carry a pregnancy to term, is considered to be wild, untamed and comparable to animals. … The fact that child-killing demons are also capable of metamorphosis strongly indicates that the two – the metamorphosing, restless uterus and the child-killing demon – are connected and thought to be the same. [Therefore] the infertile uterus is seen as functionally the same as the child-killing demon who prevents conception or kills the child (Björklund, 2017).
Let’s now discuss three Greek female demons who evolved or adapted elements from, or perhaps became conflated with, Lilith. Two of them have names which have been used as alternate translations of Lilith in the Bible. According to the early 20th century Greek scholar and Fellow at Pembroke College, John Cuthbert Lawson, “[These] three classes of female monsters … have … since the early middle ages been constantly confounded, and the special attributes of each assigned promiscuously to the others. This is due to the fact that all three possess one pronounced quality in common, the propensity towards preying upon young children…” (Lawson, 1910).
Lamme, as we discussed, was a Sumerian female demon who slayed children and drank the blood and ate the flesh of men. Dr. Stephen Herbert Langdon described Lamme as “a female vampire”. She may also have been related to the Babylonian Lamashtu, who caused similar evil happenings, along with fevers and miscarriages, among other horrible occurrences. And, if you remember, when discussing Lamme attacking a woman in childbirth as noted on a Sumerian seal, Lamme had a serpent-like head.
She arrived in Greek mythology as Lamia. According to Emily Zarka, PhD, “I would identify the vampire tradition as completely being informed by an ancient female monster called the Lamieae or Lamia . The lamieae encapsulates a type of supernatural, seductive woman who preys sexually on men and abducts children, as well, often to eat them” (Li, 2022).
In Greece, Lamia was mentioned by Sappho, and was described by a biographer of the 3rd century BCE poet Theocritus (Britannica T. E., Theocritus, 2020) as being the queen of the Laestrygones (Langdon S. H., 1931), which were a mythological race of man-eating giants mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey (Britannica T. E., Laestrygones, 2016).
She is described as the “’seven witches’ who bind men and murder maidens”, and she has seven names to accompany her (Langdon S. H., 1931). Multiple names are common for demons, and we will discuss them in more detail when we discuss the related demon, Gello. But, as Dr. Jeffrey Spier, currently the Senior Curator of Antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum (Jeffrey Spier, n.d.), notes when discussing Abyzou, the female demon who harms pregnant women and children, and her presence in Byzantine texts, “many demons … [have] other, secret names, the knowledge of which protects the threatened victim from her” (Spier, 1993).
Some of Lamia’s seven names include “she whose face is horrible” and “she that kindles a fire”, with kindling a fire meaning causing a fever. Though by saying that her face is horrible, maybe you’re just angering her at a certain point (Langdon S. H., 1931).
Like Björklund argued regarding metamorphosis, Greek mythology provided Lamia with a backstory for this already existing demon, one which illustrated that monsters are born from tragedy. According to Lawson, who cites the 1871 German book, Das Volksleben der Neugriechen und das hellenische Althertum [The National Life of the Modern Greeks and the Hellenic Antiquity]:
Lamia, according to classical tradition, was the name of a queen of Libya who was loved by Zeus, and thus excited the resentment of Hera , who robbed her of all her children; whereupon the desolate queen took up her abode in a grim and lonely cavern and there changed into a malicious and greedy monster, who in envy and despair stole and killed the children of more fortunate mothers (Lawson, 1910).
As described by Lawson, by the time lamia had been firmly installed in Greek culture, these creatures had changed greatly from the ones described by the Sumerians and Babylonians. Lamia turned from a person into a species of demons; indeed, lamiae is the plural form of the term lamia. Their descriptions almost sound like the butt of a 1950s misogynist’s housewife joke, as they contain qualities that are basically the opposite of those historically associated with proper femininity or womanhood. Lamiae are described as stupid, slovenly, gluttonous, and overweight, with feet often numbering more than two, one of which is made of bronze and another that resembles that of a goat, ox, or an ass (Lawson, 1910).
As they are frequently mated with desert or cave-dwelling, treasure-guarding dragons, lamiae are also often shown to be wealthy and living in deserts or caves (Lawson, 1910). Even in a cave, however, lamiae seem to lack basic housekeeping skills, being unclean themselves, and are unable to perform even the most basic cooking or baking (Lawson, 1910). Another basic quality of womanhood that the lamia doesn’t possess is purity.
There may also be two types of lamiae, a terrestrial version, and a single deity who rules over the sea nymphs (Lawson, 1910). The sea version is noted for her lasciviousness (Lawson, 1910). But, of course, historically, the most basic role of a woman is motherhood, and this is where the threat of the terrestrial lamiae is far more threatening, for she is a monster who feasts on human flesh, preferring, above all else, the flesh of newborn babies (Lawson, 1910).
It's interesting that these two types of lamiae seem to mirror the two types of demons whose characteristics Lilith’s mythology adopted, the serpentine and the child killing. This terrestrial version has obviously retained more of the Sumerian characteristics of Lamme.
According to the late Coleman O. Parsons, a noted book collector and professor of English at City University of New York (Coleman O. Parsons papers, 1716-1981, n.d.), lamiae were first introduced to an English audience through the children’s natural history book (A Description of Three Hundred Animals, n.d.), A Description of Three Hundred Animals. According to the British Library, A Description of Three Hundred Animals is an early picture book, first published in 1730, that was unique for its time, because it was one of the rare educational books designed for children that was also meant to entertain (A Description of Three Hundred Animals, n.d.). It describes lamiae as representing dual aspects, having female breasts, but also male sex organs. And while its face was also that of a beautiful woman, the lamia’s body was lion-like, yet covered in scales. Though the scales are meant to evoke that of a serpent, mammals with scales do exist; indeed, the only mammal to be completely covered in scales is the pangolin (What is a pangolin?, n.d.)
Lamia is probably best known in Western literature through John Keats’ eponymous narrative poem, published as part of Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems. Written in 1819 and published the following year, the year before Keats’ death at the age of 25, Keats was inspired by Robert Burton’s 1621 treatise, The Anatomy of Melancholy, who in turn discovered the Lamia through the ancient Greek writer, Flavius Philostratus (Britannica T. E., Lamia: Poem by Keats, 2020).
In the poem, Lamia is a magical being—a serpent who has fallen in love with a young man from Corinth, Lycius (Keats, 2008). Lamia had given a nymph the power of invisibility, and the nymph had hidden herself from the god, Hermes, who had fallen madly in love with her. Lamia bartered with Hermes that if she removed the nymph’s power of invisibility, Hermes, would change her into human form. He agreed, and Lamia became a beautiful woman (Keats, 2008).
Well, of course she met up with Lycius and he fell madly in love with her. She was happy to live in sin with him, for she did not want to be out in society and chance being recognized and found out, but Lycius wanted to marry her (Keats, 2008). She reluctantly agreed, as long as Lycius not invite his mentor, the philosopher Apollonius, as she knew that he will recognize her (Keats, 2008). Plans continued for the wedding unabated. Eventually, the guests arrived for the wedding; however, Apollonius arrived uninvited. Apollonius, recognizing Lamia, called out her name, causing her to turn back into her serpent form and disappear. Heartbroken, Lycius died (Keats, 2008).
Though a magical being and serpent in disguise, Lamia is not really portrayed as a villain in the poem—more of a tragic figure, somewhat similar to Hans Christian Anderson’s Little Mermaid. But while Keats’ poem is well known, it had little effect on how these demons are portrayed, as we will soon see.
Similar to Lamia is Gello. Interestingly, Dr. Stephen H. Langdon states that the male Sumero-Accadian demon Gallu became the child-stealing Lilith in Romanian-Christian mythology, and states that Gallu has become another term for Lilith throughout Jewish and Christian demonology, due to the Greek feminine ending of the word (Langdon S. H., 1931). Langdon states that this male Sumero-Accadian demon also passed into Greek culture as the female demon, Lamia (Langdon S. H., 1931).
Langdon claims that Gello is another name for Lamia and Lilith, and states that the Greek writers wrote of Gello as an obsessive mother who died young, and subsequently appears to children and those who die prematurely (Langdon S. H., 1931). Her image is that of the vampire, Empousa, and she is a demoness who steals children, as she was denied her own (Langdon S. H., 1931).
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The knowledge of one’s name giving power over one by whomever holds the knowledge is an example of a true name. According to the Encyclopedia of Fantasy:
A convention of Magic is that knowing a True Name gives power over the thus-named Demon, Dragon, Witch, Wizard or whatever. In the well known Grimm Brothers tale, Rumpelstiltskin must be named to be defeated. The True Name is shorthand for deep understanding of the named thing's essence, identity or Achilles' Heel, and is usually well guarded. (Langford, 1997)
Examples of the power of the knowledge of one’s true name have been seen throughout different parts of the world at different times in history.
As I quoted from Dr. Jeffrey Spier earlier, “many demons … [have] other, secret names, the knowledge of which protects the threatened victim from [them]” (Spier, J. (1993).
For example, misleading evil spirits regarding one’s true name was both an ancient and widespread form of protection. The Romani would officially hold two baptisms for their children, one for their tribe or family, where the child was named within the family, and one in the church, where the child was officially named. But a third, secret name was rumored to be given at the moment of the child’s birth, whispered by its mother. This secret name provides protection against evil spirits who, without knowing the child’s true name, were unable to harm it. (Man, Myth, and Magic: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Mythology, Religion and the Unknown involves the Romani ((Eds.), 1995))
And one of the most famous examples of a true name comes from ancient Egypt, as, like in Rumpelstiltskin, the entire narrative revolves around gaining power through the discovery of one’s true name. Though the god, Ra, was known by many names, he had one great name, which was known only to himself, and which gave him dominion over gods and men. “I am a prince, the son of a prince, the divine seed of a god. My father devised my name; my father and my mother gave me my name, and it remained hidden in my body since my birth, that no magician might have magic power over me.” Isis devised a plan involving blackmail in order to gain Ra’s secret name from him and, therefore, gain his power (Frazer, 1935)
Gello’s story really starts to take on its own form in the 15th century. The story was formed as part of a prayer or exorcism to protect against Gello. The story involves Melitene, who had her previous children stolen or killed by the demoness, Gello. Melitene now finds herself pregnant again, and her brothers, the saints Sisinnios and Sisynodoros, attempt to protect her and her unborn child by guarding her deep within a fortress. Apparently, Gello can’t enter the fortress uninvited—how very vampiric of her—but she can enter through crafty ways; she can disguise herself as dust, or a hair hidden in a beard, or the dirt on the neck of a horse.
When Melitene’s brothers arrive at the fortress to visit their sister, Melitene is justly apprehensive and wary about admitting them, for fear she will admit Gello. She finally relents, however—after all, it is her brothers coming to visit her—but she was right to question allowing them to enter. Gello either kills or steals Melitene’s child and flees. Melitene’s brothers pursue her to the seashore, where Gello attempts to elude the saints by transforming into a fish and a bird; however, the saints, who are also capable of transformation, are able to not only force her to return the child, but also force her to reveal her secret names, which, when written on an amulet, will protect them from further harm.
As Björkland notes:
… the transformations and Gello’s capability to metamorphose are … integral to Gello’s character: she is antagonistic towards women, marriage and childbirth (as exhibited by her wish to harm Melitene’s children), exists outside of human society (she cannot enter the fortress without treachery), and is not even fully a human, but part animal (seen in her transformation into a fish and a bird) and part inanimate soil (the dust and earth she is disguised as in order to trick her way into the fortress). Her ability to metamorphose is a direct continuation of the traits of the child-killing demons of Antiquity: Empusa in Frogs, the lamias of Apuleius, and Obyzouth in the Testament of Solomon, who, among other shapes, could take the appearance of a woman.
And, finally, we come to the last of the blood-loving, baby-thieving women who are related to Lilith by the meaning of its name—this time, it’s the screech owl. If you remember, the demon who rests in Edom after its destruction is often translated as Lilith, though that demon is also translated as nightbird, and, in the King James Version, screech owl. However, these screech owls are not demons, nor are they of Greek origin.
These are striges, with strix being the singular form of the word. According to Lawson, though they do share their gender and love of blood and/or the organs of babes and children with the other two previously-mentioned demons who are related to Lilith, striges, instead of being demons, are living human women capable of transforming themselves into birds of prey or other such animals. The belief in striges originated in Italy, and came to be shared among multiple cultures, including the Greeks, Albanians, and Corsicans.
The mythology of the strix dates back at least to the end of the fourth century, BCE (Oliphant, 1913), according to Dr. Samuel Grant Oliphant, a classics scholar and professor active from the late nineteenth into the early twentieth century (Samuel Grant Oliphant Papers, n.d.). According to Dr. Oliphant, a story on the strix’s origin was told by the Greek writer, Boios, in his lost work, Ornithogonia, which dates from the late Classical or early Hellenistic period (Fletcher, 2009) and which means the birth or origin (-gony, 2023) of birds (ornith-, 2023).
According to Dr. Kristopher F.B. Fletcher, assistant professor of Foreign Language and Literature at Louisiana State University (Dr. Kristopher Fletcher, n.d.), Ornithogonia was “possibly the first poem devoted completely to collecting myths of metamorphosis, in this case of humans into birds” (Fletcher, 2009). Indeed, metamorphosis poetry was its own genre in Classical and Hellenistic Greece, and, according to Dr. Fletcher, Ornithogonia is one of the only preserved sources of the genre prior to Ovid’s writing in the Roman period.
Though Ornithogonia is now fragmentary (Fletcher, 2009), the story of the strix was preserved (Oliphant, 1913) in Antoninus Liberalis’ Metamorphoseon Synagoge (Fletcher, 2009), or Metamorphosis Collection (Jones, 2002), which is, according to Fletcher, the primary source for the fragments. The following is Dr. Oliphant’s summation of the story contained in Metamorphoseon Synagoge:
Polyphonte, daughter of Hipponoos and Thraissa, spurned Aphrodite [the goddess of beauty and sexual love (Britannica T. E., 2022)] and went to the mountains as the companion of Artemis [goddess of the hunt and wild animals (Britannica T. E., Artemis: Greek Goddess, 2023), to join her] in her sports. Angered by the insult, the slighted goddess [Aphrodite] caused [Polyphonte] to become madly enamored of a bear.
Upon discovering [Polyphonte’s] plight, Artemis in bitter hatred turned the wild beasts against her. Then Polyphonte fled in fear to her father's house and in due time gave birth to two sons, Agrios and Oreios. These became men of huge size and immense strength. They showed no honor to god or man, but were wantonly insolent towards all. They bore away all strangers they came upon and feasted on their flesh.
Thus they incurred the wrath of Zeus, who sent [his son] Hermes [a god who, in the Odyssey, was portrayed as the messenger of gods and also marshalled the dead to Hades (Britannica T. E., Hermes: Greek Mythology, 2022)] to punish them. [Hermes] was going to cut off their hands and feet, but Ares [the god of war (Britannica T. E., Ares: Greek Mythology, 2023)], to whom Polyphonte traced her lineage, saved them from this fate. Both mother and sons, however, were transformed into birds. Polyphonte became "a strix that cries by night, without food or drink, with head below and tips of feet above, a harbinger of war and civil strife to men." Oreios became … "a bird that is seen for no good," and Agrios was changed into a vulture, "of all birds most detested by gods and men and possessed of a constant craving for human flesh and blood. (Oliphant, 1913)
According to Oliphant, this story, which may date to as early as the fourth century BCE, displays all of the vital elements necessary for the original concept of the strix: Firstly, that she is a woman, and, in this form, she is associated with both Artemis and Aphrodite. Through her mother, Thraissa, Polyphonte is also associated with witchcraft and magic, as the name Thraissa is indicative of the Macedonian-Thracian region: which is “a land of mages and witches.” Indeed, as the mythology evolves over millennia, when striges are presented in their womanly form, they are often described as witches.
The second of the vital elements is that she is a bird, but with bat-like characteristics, as she is nocturnal; a harbinger of evil; with a shrill-like scream—though, bats actually only shriek like this when in distress; as well as exhibiting behavior similar to the bat, such as its lack of need for nourishment when in hibernation (Oliphant, 1913). These bat-like characteristics also add another layer of connection to the later association of striges with vampires—though I would like to add that bats, according to an article in The New Yorker, are “cuddly and affectionate mammals with sophisticated brains [who] … have a social order similar to that of primates. Like humans, they share food and information, adopt orphans, and practice reciprocal altruism” (Larson, 2015). So please don’t let all of the anti-bat propaganda that has spread throughout the horror genre mislead you.
And the third of the vital elements is that, as a bird-women, Polyphonte is despised by both gods and men and has a taste for human blood and flesh, though Oliphant notes that in Boios’ story, it is Polyphonte’s son, Agrios, who was given these features (Oliphant, 1913). According to Dr. Oliphant, each of these features would continue to appear in future iterations of folklore involving the strix.
In Latin, the earliest mention of the strix was in 191 B.C., where it ate the organs of its victims while they were still alive. This characteristic would continue to be associated with its folklore in later iterations.
But by the second century BCE, a taste for infants had also entered the strix’s folklore. The poet, Titinius, whose work was preserved by Quintus Serenus Sammonicus (Oliphant, 1913) in his famous medical treatise (Alvarez, 2016), Liber Medicinalis, described striges as odorous, poisonous, bat-like creatures who, like the boogeyman, haunted nurseries (Oliphant, 1913). Garlic, it was noted, was used for protection (Oliphant, 1913). The strix’s association with children, especially infants, would become one of its defining features.
As an interesting aside, Dr. Pablo Alvarez, the curator of the Special Collections Research Center at the University of Michigan Library (Pablo Alvarez, n.d.), states that scholars of ancient magic often have great interest in the Liber Medicinalis, which contains numerous recipes for the healing of various illnesses and ailments. But within the 64 recipes contained within the treatise, is a recipe for an amulet to counter a fever. This recipe involved writing the term, “Abracadabra”, on papyrus, 10 times, but with each subsequent repetition, dropping the final letter, until only the “A” remained (Alvarez, 2016) —sort of like a magical, ancient version of the children’s song, “Bingo was his name-o.”
The Augustan Age provides us with many examples of folklore related to the strix. Beginning with the execution of the statesman and writer (John Ferguson, 2022), Cicero (Britannica T. E., Ciceronian period, 1998), which occurred shortly after the assassination of Julius Caesar (Toynbee, 2022), the Augustan Age spanned the transformation of Rome from a republic into an empire, ending a few years after the death of its namesake, the first Roman emperor, Augustus, in 14 CE (Grant, Augustus: Roman Emperor, 2023). The Augustan Age, together with the Ciceronian period, which preceded it, constitute the Golden Age of Latin literature (Britannica T. E., Augustan Age: Latin Literature, 2017). The Roman poets Virgil, Horace, and Ovid (Kenney, 2023) all completed important works during this period.
Indeed, Ovid wrote about the strix, describing them as:
Voracious birds ... that fly forth by night and assail children need a nurse’s care, and seize them out of their cradles and do them mischief. With their beaks they are said to pick out the child’s milk-fed bowels, and their throat is full of the blood they drink. Striges they are called ... [and] come into being as birds or are changed thereto by incantation, and the Marsian spell transforms old women into winged things,’—such are their ways.
Ovid’s use of the term, “Marsian”, relates to the Marsi, a people of ancient Italy who formed an alliance with Rome at the end of the fourth century BCE (Britannica, Marsi, 2010), and, following the Social War, which occurred between 90 and 89 BCE, became Roman citizens, along with their allies (Britannica, Social War, 2018). According to Encyclopedia Britannica: “because [the Marsi] practiced primitive medicine, their country was held by the Romans to be the home of witchcraft” (Britannica, Marsi, 2010).
At around this time, beginning with the Augustan-age, Latin Lyric poet and satirist (Grant, 2022), Horace, striges began to be associated with the screech owl. According to Oliphant, this is “doubtless furthered by the fact that the owl is par excellence the nocturnal bird of evil omen everywhere from Iceland to Madagascar and has been such since the night of time, save in ancient Athens alone. Furthermore, it is mainly due to these passages that Striges has become the ornithological appellation of the entire sub-order of the owls” (Oliphant, 1913). Indeed, British scholar (Team, 2021), James A. Jopling, states in The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names, that the strix is a screech-owl that sucked the blood of babies (Jobling, 2010)
During the time of Ovid, striges seem to have lost some of their human quality, as Ovid clearly states that there was no determination as to whether striges were vicious birds in and of themselves, or whether they were old women transformed into vicious birds through witchcraft. But by the time of Pliny the Elder, the first century author and savant (Stannard J., 2023) who was born nearly 70 years after Ovid, striges seem to have momentarily lost their human side completely and are portrayed as having only ever been birds—though incantations were still a part of their mythology. According to Pliny the Elder, these birds were summoned through spells or curses to inflict revenge or punishment on an enemy (Lawson, 1910)
Jumping forward approximately 700 years, the superstition seems to have retained the woman-being-transformed and feeding on infants mythology; though the Eastern monk and theologian doctor (Britannica, St. John of Damascus, 2022), St. John of Damascus, wrote in the 8th century of an alteration in its telling, with the women transforming into specters, rather than birds:
There are some of the more ignorant who say that there are women known as Striges… They allege that these are to be seen at night passing through the air, and that when they happen to come to a house they find no obstacle in doors and bolts, but though the doors are securely locked make their way in and throttle infants. Others say that the Strix devours the liver and all the internal organs of the children, and so sets a short limit to their lives (Lawson, 1910).
Despite the version of striges written about by St. John of Damascus, transforming into a bird had not been removed from their mythology, for in the 11th century, the statesman and theologian (Britannica, Michael Psellus, 2023), Michael Psellus, wrote that “The superstition … invests old women with this power[,] … provid[ing] them with wings in their extreme age, and represents them as settling unseen upon infants, whom, it is alleged, they suck until they exhaust all the humours in them” (Lawson, 1910).
“Humour”, coming from the Latin “liquid” or “fluid”, was, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, “one of the four fluids of the body … thought to determine a person’s temperament and features … [It was a conception of] … [Western] ancient physiological theory … [and] still current in the European Middle Ages …” (Britannica, Humour (ancient physiology), 2023)
_illustration_Alchemic_approach_to_four_humors_in_relation_to_the_four_elements_and_zodiacal_signs.jpg)
Lawson notes that 17th century theologian and keeper of the Vatican Library, Leo Allatius’ discussion of the creatures in the 17th century extends the striges’ victims to include women:
Striges (στρίγλαις), [Allatius] tellsus in effect, are old women whom poverty and misery drive to contract an alliance with the devil for all evil purposes; men are little molested by them, but women and still more commonly children, being a weaker and easier prey, suffer much from them, their breath alone being so pernicious as to cause insanity or even death. They are especially addicted to attacking new-born babes, sucking out their blood and leaving them dead, or so polluting them by their touch that what life remains to them is never free from sickness.
Over nearly two-and-a-half millennia, striges have managed to remain fairly true to their roots. Originally, she was a bird-woman with bat-like wings who screeched as she hunted for human flesh, hated by gods and men alike. By the Augustan age, she had begun her transformation from a bird-woman into an elderly witch who could transform—not into a bat-like creature, but instead into a screech owl—a nocturnal hunter that entered nurseries to feast on the blood and flesh of humans, especially babies. But striges have retained their connection to witchcraft, from their connection with the Marsians and Thraissa, the mother of Polyphonte, to her later appearences in nurseries as old witches. And she has retained her love of the bowels of babies.
By the eighteenth century, these three Greek creatures, as well as Lilith, were already being identified as vampires. According to the eighteenth century French Benedictine monk and antiquarian, Augustin Calmet, who had an interest in investigating and researching evidence related to the supernatural and the occult (Craig, 2021):
Some learned men have thought they discovered vestiges of vampirism in the remotest antiquity; but all that they say of it does not come near what is related of the vampires. The lamiae, the strigae, the sorcerers whom the accused of sucking the blood of living persons, and of thus causing their deaths, the magicians who were said to cause the death of new-born children by charms and malignant spells, are nothing less than what we understand by the name of vampires…
[Lilith], according to the Hebrews, signifies the same thing, as the Greek express by strix and lamiae, which are sorceresses or magicians who seek to put to death new-born children. …they believed that they devoured children, or sucked away all their blood till they died. (Calmet, 1850)
Indeed, drinking blood, shapeshifting, flying with bat-like wings, an aversion to garlic, needing to enter a house through supernatural means, being a source of lust and temptation—except for the specific killing of children, all of these traits that these demons exhibited throughout their history have become synonymous with the traits of modern vampires. And vampires in general—not just female ones. Killing children, however, remains the strict territory of female vampires.
And, over millennia, this child-killing female vampire has permeated into other cultures, who have very similar creatures. For example, in the Philippines, the Tagalogs have a creature called the manananggal, which is, according to Dr. Kathleen Nadeau, Professor of Anthropology at California State University:
“An older, beautiful woman capable of severing its upper torso in order to fly into the night with huge bat wings to prey on unsuspecting pregnant women in their homes, using an elongated proboscis-like tongue that sucks the hearts of fetuses or blood of unsuspecting victims” (Nadeau, 2011). And we will be briefly discussing this specific creature in a later episode, as she was the subject of the first Filipino horror film, which was from 1927—and I say we’ll briefly discuss the film because I’m quite sure it’s a lost film.
But where we most famously see the adaptation of the child-killing trait of the female vampire in literature and film is in the character of Lucy Westenra from the novel, Dracula. In both the novel and in some films based on it, most notably Coppola’s 1992 film, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Lucy, who was always a flirtatious girl, becomes overtly lascivious once she starts to turn into a vampire and, once she is turned, starts attacking children.
However, the lust and sensuality that began with Lilith as a sex demon, a succubus, would be transformed from the supernatural into a new kind of woman within a generation of the publishing of Dracula. But this new type of female vampire instead preyed on and drained her victims emotionally, and, possibly, financially. Indeed, around the time Dracula was published, Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem called The Vampire, which was inspired by a painting by his cousin, Philip Burne-Jones, also called The Vampire and first exhibited in
1897. The poem was not about a supernatural being, but instead about a woman who basically used and abused a man and threw him away with little regard:
We called her the woman who did not care,
But the fool he called her his lady fair …
The fool was stripped to his foolish hide,
Which she might have seen when she threw him aside—
The Vampire (1913), Rudyard Kipling
And, so, by WWI, a vamp, as such a woman came to be known, came to be defined as “a woman who uses her charm or wiles to seduce and exploit men”. I imagine those of you listening who are silent film fans recognize “The Vamp” as the nickname of silent film star, Theda Bara, due to all of her femme fatale roles. As “The Vamp”, the female vampire is no longer supernatural, but still defined by lust and temptation—and the ability to be a monster.
But, of course, vampires quickly returned to the land of the supernatural. Indeed, the female demons we’ve just discussed are more popular now, in terms of their use in popular entertainment, than ever before.
Lilith, for example, was utilized in the HBO horror fantasy series True Blood as a character who was supposedly the first vampire and made prior to Adam and Eve. Lilith has even had an opera written about her, which was first performed at the New York City Opera in 2001, where she was again portrayed as the first wife of Adam.
Lamia has also been utilized as a character in many modern films, including as the antagonists in the 2009 Sam Raimi horror film, Drag Me To Hell, and in the 2007 fantasy film, Stardust, where she is played by Michelle Pfeiffer.
And, so, it seems clear that, after at least three millennia, this child-killing demon, this female vampire, is still serving her primary purpose: she’s representing something evolving about women in society that we both admire and fear. She’s metamorphosing.
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