Lilith: Exploring the origins of the first vampire in folklore

Walking down a deserted street, darkened by the lack of street lamps or even the moon, you hear a sound. Was it a laugh? A breath? An invitation of death? You turn and gaze into a hypnotic pair of yellow eyes, barely aware of the two sharpened teeth sweetly piercing the flesh of your throat. As death and a demonic rebirth envelop you, knowledge and understanding flood your brain. You know where it all started, Lilith, the great mother of all vampires, of all monsters, and you hunger for revenge. The revenge that is thousands of years old. Today on Scream to Scream, we are going to explore the legend of Lilith, Adam's first wife and the mother of all demons. A story older than Adam and Eve will have conflicting origins and tales. In some Jewish legends, Lilith was the first wife of Adam, born of the same dust as her husband. Since they were created identically, Lilith demanded equal treatment. When Adam decided she should be subservient to him, she raged and fled from the Garden of Eden. God used a rib of Adam to create his new wife, Eve, and the story was forever changed. But what happened to Lilith? The Book of Enoch suggests it was Samuel, an angel of God who planted the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden. This rebellious act angered God, and he cast out Samuel, the fallen angel. With two powerful beings forsaken by God, it was inevitable that they should meet and seek their revenge. The pair returned to the garden and coaxed Eve into tasting the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Mankind's fate was sealed. Nothing inspires love so much as a mutual plot to destroy humanity. Lilith and Samuel fell in love and spawned many children. But unlike the human family of Adam and Eve, this couple gave birth to demons. God, not one to let an insult go unpunished, sent three angels, Senoi, Sanzanoi, and Zimangelov, to fetch her back. Remember those names, you may need their help. She refused, so God ordered them to kill 100 of her children each day. No mother loves to have her children killed. For her revenge, she now seeks out children to take. But if a child has the name of one of the three angels on an amulet, he or she will be spared. Why did the Bible choose to omit Lilith? Perhaps God carried a grudge, hoping to cancel her from the human memory, but if that was his plan, then God failed. The legends of Lilith found life from ancient texts to modern television, and the mother of all demons is remembered. The Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh, a favorite story read in English classes, has Lilith and a serpent living in the Huluppu tree with her demon children. The Dead Sea Scrolls identify her as a monster, like the destroying angels and demons. Even the alphabet of Ben Sira gives us the details of the three angels who kill one hundred of Lilith's children daily. Even Arabic culture speaks of the jinn woman, who is the mother of a host of demons. Perhaps the Bible did mention Lilith. In Genesis 1, God created man and woman at the same time. But in Genesis 2, Adam is created from the dust of the earth, and his rib is used to form Eve. Was the story of Lilith almost, but not completely erased? The first demon, the mother of all vampires, the heart of evil, her stories are difficult to erase. Is Lilith evil? Or could the mother of all demons, the first vampire, the creature responsible for taking infants and children, be good? Is it a matter of perspective? Lilith's crime was demanding equality, a woman having equal standing in God's eye to a man. The church was not having this. Women were not allowed to serve as priests. Once a month, women experience the sin of Eve. And for seven days, according to Leviticus, they are unclean. In fact, anyone who touches her shall also be unclean for seven days. In Orthodox synagogues, men and women are separated, with women in the back. Men need to focus on religious ideals and would possibly be distracted if they saw a woman in services, while women can see the men. Women, it was assumed, did not need religious training. The men would be able to tell them what to think. The story of Mulan, now a Disney classic, centers around the fear that if Mulan is discovered to be a woman, no matter how much good she has done, she will be killed by her own troops. Can the idea that women are less than men be good? Is it possible that Lilith simply fights for equality? Lilith Fair was co-founded by the Canadian musician Sarah McLachlan. Tired of concert promoters and radio stations refusing to feature two female groups in a row, McLachlan fought conventional wisdom and started a music tour, booking only female solo acts and female-only bands, it was an amazing hit and inspired generations of women. To the powerful performers, Lilith was a symbol of empowerment, a woman strong enough to leave paradise rather than accept the role of lesser human being. Give me equality or give me the death of your children. Ah, there's the rub. How can someone be good if they take or kill our young? One book, Krampus and Friends, Tales of Terrifying Christmas Monsters from Around the World, has a new take on Lilith. In the chapter called Lussi, the Swedish name for Lilith, she steals children, but to rescue them from evil parents. Lilith, or Lussi, is a good woman who cares for the young, especially girls, and wants to save them from the subservience of parents and husbands. She took weak children to protect them from wicked parents. Is a crime done for good still a crime? And can Lilith be blamed for her actions? God himself commands three angels to kill 100 of her own children each day. Any parent would feel anger at such an act, but even then, she allows a measure of hope. Give your child an amulet with Lilith's name on it or the name of any of the three angels, and she would spare the child. She wants to be remembered. She wants her sacrifice to be acknowledged. Unlike the god who attacks her, she wants to show mercy. Are these the actions of an evil being? Such a powerful woman with stories dating back to Gilgamesh is enticing for any writer, and as a result, Lilith has found herself immortalized in modern literature and cinematography. Jadis, Queen of Narnia, captured the child Edmund, who she knew as the prophesied son of Adam. She ate the silver apple in her homeland, which gave her immortality, and used magic to control and destroy. It is believed by some scholars that Jadis, the White Queen from the Chronicles of Narnia, is another form of Lilith, and her child abduction helps justify this point. In Neil Gaiman's DC comic series The Sandman, the young boy Daniel Hall is put to bed and enters the Dreaming. Cain shows up with Eve and Abel and suggests that they all tell a story. Cain begins with the Parliament of Rooks. Often confused with crows, Rooks will sometimes form a circle around a single bird from their flock, like Parliament holding a trial. The bird cries out, making his case, and the others, the Parliament of Rooks, will either all fly away, abandoning this bird, or unite and peck the poor creature to death. Eve takes her turn, and for her story, describes Adam's first wife. Expelled from paradise, this Lilith organized the angels, whom she has turned into her lovers, to build the Silver City. And the Lords of Deliverance, a series by Larissa Lone, makes Lilith the mother of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Children who would make the mother of all demons proud, this tale ties her once again to the Bible. If Lilith was the beginning of mankind, it is only right she shows up for the end. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, an album by the group Genesis, is the tale of Rael, who works through his fears and must reevaluate his ideas of what masculinity really is. Lilith is part of his journey, leading him through a crowded tunnel to a darkness he must overcome. Here, Lilith becomes one who empowers a man to give up his struggle for masculinity and domination. Is this another view of Lilith as good? Supernatural TV thrillers have taken the country by storm, and Lilith seems to be a popular character. She is, after all, the mother of all demons. So a show about demons seems a natural place for the mom to show up. Supernatural, with 15 seasons to testify to its popularity, brings Lilith in during season four. The first person, tempted by Lucifer, her power lies in possessing young women. Trapped in hell until 2007, she takes up her former role as commander to the forces of darkness, preparing to usher in the apocalypse. As you might expect from a series with nine or more seasons ahead of them, she is less than successful. Another popular TV series, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, a darker version of Sabrina the Teenage Witch from Archie Comics, has Lilith using Sabrina to plot the overthrow of Satan so she can assume the role as the Queen of Hell. Given the original legends of Lilith and her demand that she is treated as an equal to all men, even if they are the Lord of the Dead, this seems very in character for the mother of all demons. Despite her atrocities, manipulations, and murders, she manages to pull out a thread of sympathy for the viewer. We wish her well and hope one day she achieves her goal. No matter what take TV and books give her, Lilith is still the mother of monsters, demons, and vampires. So is she the most important or best remembered? Jonathan Harker wonders about a darkened castle, curious about the strange host he has come to work for. He was warned not to wander about at night and learns why when he encounters a trio of women, all with ruby red lips and bright white teeth. Harker is drawn to them by a power that he cannot control, and he finds he must kiss them, even as their fangs draw closer to his neck. His host bursts in and rescues him, but the host, Dracula, saves his guest by giving the three thirsty women babies to feast upon instead of the frightened Jonathan Harker. Dracula has plans himself for this man. Dracula was to be the first vampire to catch the attention of readers around the world, but he was not the beginning of the legend of the vampire. A man lies in bed, shivering in the dark, not from cold, but from fear. He has heard the warnings all his life. Men should never sleep in a house alone, but sickness ravaged his family and kept anyone from volunteering to spend the night with him. A strong man, he feared nothing on the daytime, but here in Babylon, without even the moon to give him light, he lay terrified. The Lilith too would come, daughters of Lilith. They would come to any man alone at night. They would feast on his blood. Vampires have ravaged our imaginations from the Sumerian Lilitu to Dracula to Twilight's Edward Cullen. But Lilith is still the first and the mother of them all.