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Re: Who is Lileth?2
nitrous@ccnet.com
Wed, 15 Feb 95 10:37:34 PDT
In article <199502141918.LAA26950@jupiter.calstatela.edu>,
>
> Who is Lileth? I have heard that it is a Jewish legend that she preceded
> Eve. Have any of you anthro-types heard of that legend?
The Jewish legends about Lileth say that she was the first wife of Adam, before
Eve was given to him. Lilith came to Adam as he lay asleep and coupled with
him in his dreams, therefore she became the mother of all the uncanny beings
who share this planet invisibly with mortals, and are known as the fairy races
or the djinn.
The Jews regarded her as the queen of evil spirits and made amulets to protect
themselves against her. she is the personification of erotic dreams that
trouble men which stems from the suppressed desire for forbidden delights.
Charles Godfrey Leland, in his Etruscan-Roman Remains (London, 1892) identifies
Lilith with Herodias or Aradia. he notes old Sllavonian spells and charms
where Lilith is mentioned, and that she is said to have 12 daughters who are
the 12 kinds of fever.
Lilith is also seen as the moon goddess, the archethypal seductress, the
personification of the dangerous feminine glamour of the moon. To Wiccans she,
llike Hecate, is a patroness of witches. She is depicted on a terra-cotta
relief from Sumer, dating around 2000 B.C.E with great claws as feet, like
those of a giant bird of prey.
Wiccans today see her as an enticing sorceress, a beautiful vampire, the femme
fatale.
What follows I have not seen in any book, however just an array of posts that I
have picked up for a while, therefore I suppose this can be called rumor:
Lilith was Adam's original wife, supposedly of demonic blood. It was said that
she shared Adam's blood with other demons, which gained her a soul. She hung
around Adam for awhile but when Cain killed Abel and was cursed to walk the
earth forever she went to him and by some arcane ritual created a child. I
don't know if the gender of the child was specified. The child could only live
by taking the lives of humans and thus postpone its own demise ( the child was
1/4 demon and therefore bound to the laws of man and demonkinds). This perhaps
might be where the myth of Cain being the "father" of all the creatures of the
night came from. It is rumoredthat there were scrolls or books fo linage and
events at the Library at Alixandrea, prior to its destruction.
So, hope that answered some of your questions. It was all that I could find
off hand before I run off the work.
-Kristi
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