The ardat lilī is a sexually frustrated and infertile female who behaves aggressively toward young men. Her breasts are filled with poison, not milk.

The lilītu dwells in desert lands and open country spaces and is especially dangerous to pregnant women and infants. The ancient name “Lilith” derives from a Sumerian word for female demons or wind spirits-the lilītu and the related ardat lilǐ. Yet, in her every guise, Lilith has cast a spell on humankind. In most manifestations of her myth, Lilith represents chaos, seduction and ungodliness. An annual music festival that donates its profits to battered women’s shelters and breast cancer research institutes is called the Lilith Fair. Her name appears as the title of a Jewish women’s magazine and a national literacy program. Modern feminists celebrate her bold struggle for independence from Adam. “Her enchanted hair,” he wrote, “was the first gold.” 1 Irish novelist James Joyce cast her as the “patron of abortions.” 2 Later, her beauty would captivate the English poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. In the Renaissance, Michelangelo portrayed Lilith as a half-woman, half-serpent, coiled around the Tree of Knowledge. In the Middle Ages she reappears in Jewish sources as the dreadful first wife of Adam.

She makes a solitary appearance in the Bible, as a wilderness demon shunned by the prophet Isaiah. Lilith next migrated to the world of the ancient Hittites, Egyptians, Israelites and Greeks. Her dark origins lie in Babylonian demonology, where amulets and incantations were used to counter the sinister powers of this winged spirit who preyed on pregnant women and infants.

Image: Courtesy of Richard Callner, Latham, NY.įor 4,000 years Lilith has wandered the earth, figuring in the mythic imaginations of writers, artists and poets. In the accompanying article, Janet Howe Gaines traces the evolution of Lilith. In recent years, Lilith has undergone another transformation as modern feminists retell her story. Lilith’s character was not created out of whole cloth, however the medieval authors drew on ancient legends of the winged lilītu-a seductive, murderous demoness known from Babylonian mythology. Artist Callner identifies the large figure (right of center) as Lilith. When Adam insisted she play a subservient role, Lilith grew wings and flew away from Eden. According to medieval Jewish tradition, Lilith was Adam’s first wife, before Eve. Winged spirits tumble across the night sky in New York artist Richard Callner’s “Lovers: Birth of Lilith” (1964), now in a private collection.

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