Lilith

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The figure of Lilith has haunted Jewish folklore for at least a millennium. Her story begins with an apocryphal tale that describes her as the first wife of Adam, before the creation of Eve. This story comes out of a curious doublet in the text of Genesis, where woman’s creation is described twice—the second, more famous story describes Eve being created out of Adam’s rib, but the first describes Adam being created alongside an unnamed woman.

In folklore, this first woman was given the name Lilith—a Hebrew word meaning “screech owl.” Stories tell how she demanded to be treated as Adam’s equal (because they were created at the same time) and how eventually, unsatisfied, she fled the Garden of Eden. Once she reached the sea, she was chased down by three angels who offered her an ultimatum: if she didn’t return, a hundred of her children would be killed every day. She chose her freedom.

How did she have so many children? Some stories describe her as marrying Samael, the king of the demons, and having thousands of demon children each day, while others cast her as a rosy-haired succubus who visited men at night, stealing and impregnating herself with their nocturnal emissions. Lilith was also associated with the death of human children, particularly infants, and for centuries Jewish birthing rooms were adorned with protective amulets to keep her at bay. Outside of Jewish folklore, many Renaissance paintings cast her as the snake who first tempted Eve with the forbidden fruit.

Though Lilith’s story was originally intended to represent a “monstrous” perversion of womanhood, motherhood, and female sexuality, she has been reclaimed in recent decades as a radical icon. A feminist Jewish magazine bears her name, and several novels and plays tell alternative versions of the Genesis story where the “forbidden fruit” offered to Eve by Lilith is actually a sapphic love.