Danger: Women Writing

The other day we talked about female demons who seduced men – succubi – so it seems only fair that we give the same attention to male demons who seduce women on today’s Dark Side Demon Monday.

I guess this kind of demon is stuck in my head because I just finished reading Larissa Ione’s fabulous PLEASURE UNBOUND which features a rather sexy and honorable incubus. If you haven’t read it, be sure to check it out.

But back to the incubus. In most myths, the incubus seduces a woman to have sex with him and sometimes such intercourse will result in a child – a cambion. A cambion has special powers as a result of the inheritance of the incubus powers. The most well-known of cambions is probably Merlin, who is said to have been conceived as a result of an incubus impregnating a king’s daughter. Much like Merlin was conceived with deceit, so, too, Merlin uses deceit to produce Arthur and use him to achieve his desires.

There are some instances in myth and religious discussion that hint that an incubus might be bisexual, assuming a female form to trick a man into having sex and then using the results of such sex to impregnate women while in the form of an incubus.

Very interesting! It seems to me that the mores of the times could not imagine that sex was something people wanted to do. Blaming demons to justify unwanted sexual desires made it easier to hide or deal with these issues.

Have you read any good books where an incubus was the hero? Or a succubus as a heroine? Please share with us if you did!

I think one of my all time favorite classic television shows is THE TWILIGHT ZONE. One of the best episodes was NIGHTMARE AT 20,000 FEET which was all about a gremlin that was trying to sabotage a plane. Of course the only passenger on the plane that could see what was going on was a very young William Shatner.

The origins of gremlins is an interesting one. According to Monsterpedia, gremlins are fictional mischievous creatures that are “mechanically oriented and extremely devious.” Because of their interest in mechanical things, gremlins came to be associated most commonly with aircraft. In fact, since 1942 Royal Air Force journals make mention of gremlins that were sabotaging airplanes.

Interest in gremlins appears to have spread after author Roald Dahl wrote his children’s book THE GREMLINS that was optioned by Disney, but never made into a motion picture. Eventually the characters in the story were optioned to Warner Bros. who used them in several World War II cartoons.

During World War II, many pilots complained of weird creatures sabotaging their planes and mechanics noted missing tools that were being hidden by the weird little creatures. Because of their association with planes, gremlins have even been incorporated in the logos of various air corps and patrols.

In recent times, people are more familiar with gremlins from the 1984 motion picture of the same name: GREMLINS. In that movie, gremlins were fuzzy adorable little creatures who turned into menacing and deadly demons if you failed to follow three little rules: never expose the gremlin to bright lights, never put it in water, and never feed it after midnight.

You can read more about gremlins here:

Monsterpedia: http://www.monstropedia.org/index.php?title=Gremlin
Wikimedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gremlin
GREMLINS, the movie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gremlins_(film)

The origin of the word demon goes back to the Greek word “daimon” but to the Greeks the word did not have a negative connotation. Instead, a Greek daimon was a benevolent being. The idea that demons were malevolent was one that apparently came about as Christianity spread.

In Scripture and Catholic theology the term demon came to be associated the devil, evil spirits and the fallen angels.

Fallen angels were angels who had been banished from heaven for disobeying or rebelling against God. The most well-known of the fallen angels is Lucifer and is generally thought of as Satan, but in reality, the concept of Lucifer comes from the book of Isaiah. Lucifer, which means “light-bearer” in Latin, is actually a reference to the powerful King of Babylon.

As demons go, Lucifer in his guise as Satan brings fear to many and has been the source of many a bone-chilling fright in novels and movies like the Exorcist. Milton’s PARADISE LOST cemented Lucifer’s identification as Satan and as the leader of the fallen angels. Satan remains a persona banished to hell for his actions and determined to punish the God who exiled him.