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What is a Succubus, and Her Counterpart the Incubus?
And How Have These Legends Been Twisted?


Neal Litherland, Yahoo! Contributor Network
May 14, 2011 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."
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Christianity and Judaism are filled with myths and legends that have become a part of our modern day culture and religious beliefs. Both the genuine stories from the Bible (such as the tales of angels appearing in strange and bizarre forms to bring tidings), and the less than genuine stories (such as the notion of a pre-tribulation rapture, a modern Armageddon and even the Holy Grail itself) have survived. Several notions and creatures have also survived from Biblical lore, including the idea of a ghoul, along with various demons and devils. Two of the most popular varieties of these evil spirits that have seduced their way into pop culture and modern myth though is the succubus and the incubus.

Both of these creatures are considered demons, and thus under the rule of Satan himself (even if the Bible remains vague to the point of total obscurity on what hell is really like and how it works). A succubus is female (though most other creatures don't have the ability to get a gender), and it comes to men as they sleep and seduces them. Men would have potent dreams of having sex, and when they awoke they would likely feel extremely aroused and possibly find they'd ejaculated in the night. Since wet dreams weren't covered in the sex education portion of the Bible (the Song of Solomon laid out all sorts of rules and suggestions for biblically acceptable sex), the phenomenon was assigned to the seduction of an evil spirit.

There is also an old Jewish legend about Adam's first wife Lilith. Lilith, who left Adam when she refused to accept male dominance, was asked to come back by three angels. She refused, and thus she was told that 100 of her children would die each day. She accepted this fate, becoming a sexual predator upon both sleeping men as a succubus (which is how she would get pregnant) and sleeping babies. Since we still can't explain crib death, the malicious intentions of an angry spirit seemed like a great explanation at the time. Christianity wasn't alone in either of these beliefs, since there are many pagan cultures that had similar myths and creatures. In fact, Lilith is suspected to be a remnant of an earlier goddess who was demonized by the Jews after they became the dominant religion.

The incubus is actually the other side of the coin from the succubus. The incubus was a male demon who would bring nightmares, and it would force itself upon women as they slept. While these creatures could be explained away as sexual dreams and nightmares, there was the unusual fact that when an incubus attack was reported it sometimes resulted in pregnancy. Since birth control pills hadn't been invented and condoms were uncommon, and since spirits lack semen, the pregnancies were likely the result of night time rape. The incubus, a shape shifter and corrupted of good things could take the form of family members and even members of the clergy, which was convenient for shifting the blame from people who committed sexual assault to a being that would come and force itself on women in the night.

While succubi gave birth to demons, the results of an incubus getting a girl pregnant was a half demon creature called a cambion. There are some that claim that Merlin the great sorcerer of Camelot (or the wicked warlock depending on the legend and your view point) was a cambion, hence his powers. There are even modern allusions to the psychic vampire community, comparing members with these creatures that used humans as a source for both their lusts and their needs. Of course, these two demons are just another interpretation of the needs of the supernatural world and how it interacts with the mortal one.

Lilith, first wife of Adam is credited as the first, and also may be the Mother of all Vampiri