In Germanic folklore, the Nixe (“neck” or “knucker” in English, “näkki” in Finnish, also known as “lorelei”and “rhine maiden”) are water spirits who try to entice people into the water to drown, often with their beauty of their songs.
Contrary to popular belief, most of the well-known legends about Lilith are from the Middle Ages, not antiquity. As the earliest references to Lilith appear to have come from the time of the Babylonian Talmud, it is often theorized that Lilith might have been derived from the Mesopotamian “Lilitu”, a race of female demons.
The Alphabet of Ben Sira, dating from sometime between the 8th and 10th centuries, is the first known source that identified Lilith as Adam’s first wife. Meanwhile, medieval folklore posited Lilith as the queen of Asmodeus, a king of demons who appeared in the deuterocanonical “Book of Tobit” and a number of Talmudic legends. The 13th century Treatise on the Left Emanation identified Lilith and Samael as two halves of an andrognyous being, the spiritual equivalent of Adam and Eve, while Asmodeus was said to be married to a lesser Lilith. The Zohar, a product of the later 13th century, identifed Lilith as a mate of Samael and angel of sacred prostitution who rules over the Northern region of Hell, Rome. In later, Lurianic Kabbalah, there are a multitude of Liliths, the most powerful of which was the wife of Adam Kadamon.
In Zoharistic Kabbalah, Agrat bat Mahlat is a queen of demons, a succubus, angel of sacred prostitution, and mate of the Archangel Samael. She is said to rule the Western quarter of Hell, Salamanca. Amemar identified her as the mistress of sorceresses and Shlomo ben Aderet as the mother of the cambion (half-demon, half-human) Asmodeus.
