Succubus

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Succubus, wood carving (16th century) in a Cambridge inn

A succubus (also succubus or Sukkuba , plural: succubes , from Latin: succumbere , 'lying down') is a feminine, particularly beautiful and lustful demon or devil who looks for a man in order to have sexual relations with him. It is the female counterpart to the male incubus .

Origin and description

The succubus is seductive and has a bewitching charm, and succubi appear like beautiful, kind, human-like beings. Despite their trustworthy and friendly appearance, succubes have two bat-like wings, a pointed tail and horns. According to Hexenhammer , a succubus steals the sleeping man's semen. The following order will therefore prevail: a succubus overtakes seeds from a man ; if the latter is specifically assigned to this man, that demon will bring that seed to the woman.

The oldest mention of demons of this kind comes from Mesopotamia , under the names Lilu and Lilutu or Ardat Lili and Irdu Lili, as demons that appear in sleep in the form of erotic dreams. This idea is also found in Jewish and Christian mythology. Eva wasn't the first. Man was created male and female, and the man's name was Adam and the woman's name was Lilith . There is only one brief mention of it in the Bible, but Jewish tradition has numerous traditions about Adam's first wife. She is described as a demonically beautiful creature who seduces men in their sleep as a succubus. As a jealous, avenging demon, she seeks to kill newborn babies. In Faust III he fell for the female devil Helena and was driven to murder out of jealousy . In the Jungian doctrine of archetypes , the succubus is the dark female aspect of the man that belongs to the complex of the anima conception.

Reception as a literary figure

Movie

literature

  • Witch hammer
  • Stanislas de Guaita . Le Temple de Satan , 1891
  • Robbins, Rossell Hope. The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology . Crown Publishers Inc., 1959. ISBN 0-600-01183-6 .
  • Siegmund Hurwitz: Lilith. The First Eve. Historical and psychological aspects of the dark feminine. Daimon Verlag, Einsiedeln 1992, ISBN 3-85630-522-X .

Web links

Wiktionary: Succubus  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Commons : Succubus  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Succubus, the ( Duden )