Succubus - Valentine's Special

Happy Valentines Day! We're looking at one of the sexier demons in mythology this week, and delving into the world of the Succubus from religious mythology! How did these demons convince men to sleep with them? Why are they associated with sleep paralysis? Find out this week!

NOTE: This episode, whilst not including swears - does obviously contain explicit material in regards to this monster's MO. I've not formally marked it as explicit on the podcast - but I would advise parental permission before listening if under 18.

Transcript

INTRO:

Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world. 

These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.

I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.

Awh happy Valentine’s week! It’s a cute day when Saint Valentines was sentenced to death - what a fun day to celebrate with the people you love around you. Well we’re going down a darker route this week, and looking at the tempting Succubus from medieval and generally religious mythology to go with our love theme.

DESCRIPTION:

Before I start, if you’re under 18, this episode is a bit explicit in parts, whilst I do not swear - this monster is a particularly raunchy one, so I’ll be noting this one as explicit to protect younger listeners. As much as this is an educational podcast, that I love doing for all ages - which is why I don’t swear, when I swear like a trooper in real life - I’m not down for exposing this kind of monster and their MO to kids without their guardians knowing, so if you’re happy for your kids to listen to this one, go ahead - but if not, turn it off now. Thanks!

The Succubus or Succubi plurally, is a demon from usually religious folklore - but is sometimes just put down to medieval folklore. They are mentioned, sometimes not in name or sometimes in others, in practically every mainline religion as a poster girl for temptation. 

Now there are two descriptions for Succubi, and this is depending on which era you want to focus on. I’ll tell you about the original description first. 

The original Succubi were your typical demon, with cloven hooves, horns, spiked tails and tongues with a hideous demonic face and body with huge bat-like wings that could help them fly. They were pretty nasty - some legends say they had three breasts, and talon-like fingernails and were generally disfigured. In later tellings, the Succubus were beautiful from the get-go, the most beautiful beings you would ever see - they would usually be scantily clad, but would still have the tell-tale bat-wings and horns. 

They were considered psychic or manipulator demons and had some pretty cool powers - they are completely immortal, can fly, they’re also said to have super strength, stamina, healing and speed. But their most important three powers are that of shapeshifting, dream walking and sexual empowerment. 

What’s the general MO of a Succubus I hear you ask? Well it’s using these three powers to have sex with human men, simple as. They would first invade the man’s dreams and shapeshift into the most beautiful and desired woman, different in every man’s case, and seduce them with a single touch. However, this would also be happening in reality - with the man completely asleep, and the Succubus sitting unchanged on his lap.

The Succubus would then have sex with them until climax - however, the Succubus would never tire - as it would steal the man’s life force through intercourse. If there were repeated visits from the Succubus, the man would eventually die from basically having his soul sucked out of him and the Succubus would move onto the next victim - most of the time.

Sometimes, the Succubus would steal the man’s semen - yep you heard me right. There are mixed reports on what happens here, but the Succubus then apparently turns into the male version of itself, an Incubus - and will do the same thing, but to a woman. However, they would implant the stolen sperm into the woman - which in reality would just be like insemination right? Wrong - the demon would do something to corrupt the semen, which would mean that the child would be born with deformities or be compelled to commit crime or evil acts. Gross right? 

But either way, they were almost completely irresistible - so they were often used as an excuse for adultery, but the excuse was that the temptation was absolutely unrefusable. Not sure how many people generally got away with that.

ORIGIN:

Onto etymology, Succubus has Latin origins with its name as you have probably guessed. It comes from the word succubare which means to lie under. So it’s nice and easy this week. Fun fact though, is that the very English insult for a whore ‘strumpet’ also derives from this word. So if you call someone a strumpet, which is quite rare anyway, you’re basically calling them a sexy soul stealing demon, so that’s nice. The full word Succubus wasn’t founded until the late 14th century, so within the middle ages when this monster was the most rampant in sightings. 

In Europe, the Succubus was mostly linked to Christianity and Judaism, and the commandment of resisting temptation. It was believed that these demons were sent on behalf of the devil to tempt men away from their spouses, breaking that commandment. 

However, I mentioned Judaism there because they actually have the most intense link to this demon due to a figure we’ve spoken about before in the podcast and that is the legendary Lilith from Hebrew demonology. Basic background to her is that she was apparently the first wife of Adam and was made from the same clay as him, who refused the comfort of the Garden of Eden as she didn’t want to be inferior to Adam. She left Eden, and got with the archangel Samael. It’s said that she gave birth to the first demon, the Lilu. According to legend, the Lilu were the first ever born Succubi, with Lilith being their Succubi mother - and the mother of all temptation and demons. Jewish mothers were terrified that their babies would be eaten or kidnapped by Lilith and her children, and it’s still a cautionary tale told to this day. It was said that Lilith and Lilu had the kiss of death, making any of their kisses deadly. 

There are mentions of Succubi in other mythologies too, such as Lamia from Greek mythology, who was the Queen of Libya and had an affair with Zeus, and bore him children. Once Hera found out about this, she killed the children and drove Lamia mad with the obsessive thoughts of them, driving her to kill any child around her. Because of this, she eventually transformed into a hideous snake-like creature that attempted to seduce men, and eat them. 

There are also reports with the Arabic Jinns, that we covered a few weeks ago. In Zanzibar, there is the Popobawa, Hungary the Lidérc, in Turkey there’s the Karabasan, India the Yakshini - so there are loads of different names and types of Succubus in many religions and cultures from around the world. 

They are also linked to sleep paralysis demons though, as these monsters also attack their prey when they are sleeping to the same extent as the Night Hag. In the 15th century when this myth was at its most popular - there was obviously no research or medical knowledge of sleep paralysis, they believed that obviously being paralysed and being touched erotically had to be the work of something paranormal. 

One of the most famous sightings of a Succubus was that of Pope Sylvester the Second, who met a Succubus, the original hideous type of them too, when he was a younger lad. He’d just been rejected by the woman he loved, and she promised him knowledge, wealth and sex if he stayed faithful to her. 

Apparently, this power eventually made him become the Pope, and they had an apparent happy and secret relationship for many years. However, one day the Succubus foresaw that the Pope would die whilst reading mass in Jerusalem, and so the Pope quickly repented all of his sins - and by all chances, died during Mass that day. Apparently he had his eyes gouged out by the Devil himself, then his tongue and hands cut off - but that’s just some tellings. Meridiana, the Succubus, died shortly after and was buried with him in the Basilica of St John Lateran in Rome.

To this day though, apparently their grave steams and rattles when a Pope is about to die - and so far, it’s been right, so that’s kind of weird. 

Now the only real life thing I can kind of link them to is the old timey belief that if you cheated on your spouse, it was with a demon - rather than just another horny individual. Especially if you were a woman, and had a child out of wedlock, it was assumed that you had been intimate with an Incubus, or maybe it was a Succubus with stolen semen - who knows. Either way, you and your child would be cursed, sometimes killed for defiance, especially if you were a woman because they just loved killing us for some reason, or if you were a married man cheating on your spouse.

There have actually been loads of modern day sightings and reports of Succubi, from men all over the world during the 2010’s up to now - however, are they just using it as an excuse for cheating or perhaps having a wet dream? Who can say. 

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: 

Anyway, onto cultural significance, we have quite a few this week!

In art, we have most famously the painting of Lilith by John Collier from 1889 - which perfectly shows her with the snake from the old stories. I love this painting, and I know a lot of people who have had this tattooed actually - I’ve actually saved a space on my upper arm for Lilith, but she’s going to be full on demonised. We also have the Nightmare series by Henry Fuesli from 1781 which I mentioned in the Night Hags episode, Vampire by Edvard Munch from 1895, and I would generally be wary of googling too much into Succubus art - as it does actually get very explicit very quickly, but if you’re looking for that go ahead!

For movies, we have Siren, Conan the Barbarian, Jennifer’s Body, Grim Prairie Tales, Ghostbusters, The Ninth Gate, The Haunted, Case 39, Demon Hunter, Soulkeeper, VHS, Def by Temptation and Tomie.

In TV, there are quite a few such as Lost Girl, The Gates, South Park, Darkstalkers, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Being Human, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hex, Reaper, Masters of Horror, Charmed, The Dresden Files, Star Trek, Torchwood, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Twin Peaks, Dragon’s Dogma and X-Files. 

For Video Games, there are loads this week! Such as Devil May Cry, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Divinity Original Sin 2, Succubus in Wonderland, Warrior Kings, Overlord, Planescape Torment, Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance, Castlevania, Catherine, The Witcher, City of Heroes, Darkstalkers, Dragon Age, Final Fantasy, Mass Effect, The Last Sovereign and Elder Scrolls. I’m going to add Succubus; the game here, but please don’t look this up if you’re under 18 - it’s not advised. Even for people over 18, also not advised. 

For books, it’s been an interesting research point, because you would be surprised at how much porn I accidentally found. So I’ve done the difficult part for you and I would recommend Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of Belief by Walter Stephens for a really in depth scholarly approach to the subject. If you want to look more at gender theory with this, there’s also Lilith, Gender and Demonology by Stephanie Spoto. For more casual readers, A Field Guide to Demons, Fairies, Fallen Angels and Other Subversive Spirits by Carol and Dinah Mack is a more summarised version of all the demon species. Or lastly for more visual people, Pandemonium by Ed Simon is a great one for daemonology with gorgeous illustrations attached.

DO I THINK THEY EXISTED? 

Now it’s time for, do I think they existed? Hmm, do I think sexy demons go about and steal semen? Probably not to be honest, although this myth goes back so far and is embedded into so many mainline religions, that it’s actually quite hard to say a flat out no to. 

I definitely believe there are people out there that use sex like this, but I’m not sure if they’re demons, or just really crappy people - although, maybe that’s why they’re crappy people, because they’re demons. I don’t know - but the idea that someone could drain the life out of you, and potentially steal that baby-making stuff for other demons, just doesn’t really make much sense to me. But whatever floats your boat I suppose.

In all seriousness though, maybe it’s a personalisation of the idea of temptation, which as I said - is within all big religions, and sex is usually at least one of these tempations, being that with multiple partners, or through being unfaithful - it’s something that’s generally frowned upon based on these religions. However, I’m all for free love baby - you go have sex with who you like, as long as it’s consentual and you’re not hurting anyone e.g. cheating. We don’t slut shame on this podcast, you go, be free and sexy!

OUTRO: 

Well what a fun one for Valentine’s Day - although maybe a little on the warning side too. Please do refrain from having sex with demons, it’s just not advised - you could end up being a weird vessel for a demon baby or you could just end up having the life very literally sucked out of you - although, could be worse ways to go I suppose.

Next week we’re going back over to Ancient Egypt for a nice little change and looking at the fearsome underworld guardian, Ammit - an amalgamation of all the deadly animals in Africa. Come prepared with your heart and a feather next week!

For now thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, Youtube and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk - you can also find us on Goodpods and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast, ya know if you feel like it.

Come join the fun and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.

But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.