The Encyclopedia Of Demons And Demonology

146 ligature
entered a home. The only solution is to keep it busy with
tasks; otherwise, it will destroy the occupants.
The flickering light liderc is a ball of light (ignis fautis)
that hovers over the household where someone will
soon die.
FURTHER READING:
Mack, Carol K., and Dinah Mack. A Field Guide to Demons:
Fairies, Fallen Angels, and Other Subversive Spirits. New
York: Owl Books/Henry Holt, 1998.
ligature A knotted loop of thread used by witches to
cause demonic castration or impotence in men, as well
as barrenness in women and unhappiness in marriage.
The ligature also served to bind couples in illicit amatory
relationships.
Belief in impotence caused by SORCERY with DEMONs
was not widespread until about the 14th century, when
SABBATs, PACTs with the DEVIL, and the evil acts of witches
gained prominence in witch trials. Fear of ligature increased
in the witch hysteria of the Inquisition, when
witches were believed to use powers bestowed by the
Devil to interfere in the sexual acts of people.
Thomas Platter, a physician in the Montpellier region
of France in 1596, described how ligature happened to
newlyweds: At the instant when a priest blessed a new
marriage, a witch went behind the husband, knotted a
thread, and threw a coin on the ground while calling the
Devil. If the coin disappeared, it meant that the Devil
took it to keep until Judgment Day, and the couple was
doomed to unhappiness, sterility, and adultery.
Platter believed fully in ligatures, noting that couples
living in Languedoc were so fearful of demonic castration
that not 10 weddings in 100 were performed publicly
in church. Instead, the priest, the couple, and their parents
went off in secret to celebrate the sacrament. Only
then, Platter reported, could the newlyweds enter their
home, enjoy the feasting, and go to bed. He concluded
that the panic was so bad that there was a local danger of
depopulation.
Other means could cause ligature: a nut or acorn split
in two and placed on either side of a bed; a needle used to
sew a corpse’s shroud, placed beneath a pillow; or three
or four beans placed beneath the bed, on the road outside
a house, or around the door.
Folk magic remedies could remove a ligature. The victim
would be cured by eating a woodpecker or by smelling
the scent of a dead man’s tooth. Another remedy called
for rubbing the entire body with raven’s bile and sesame
oil. Quicksilver (mercury) enclosed in a reed sealed with
wax or sealed in an empty hazelnut shell could be placed
beneath the afflicted person’s pillow or under the threshold
of the house or the bedroom. The bile of a BLACK DOG
sprinkled on a house would neutralize a demon, and the
BLOOD of a black dog sprinkled on the walls would clear
all evil spells. Wormwood or squill flowers hung at the
bedroom door would keep out a demon.
FURTHER READING:
Lea, Henry Charles. Materials toward a History of Witchcraft.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1939.
lightning In folklore, the mark of the DEVIL. Lightning
strikes leave streaks and ragged, hooked, charred marks
on objects. According to lore, these are claw marks of the
Devil.
NICHOLAS REMY, a 16th-century demonologist, said
that DEMONs mingle with lightning and determine where
it strikes. Remy said that when he was a boy, his house
at Charmes, France, was struck by lightning and marked
with “deep claw marks.” Further evidence of the presence
of the Devil was the “most foul smell of sulphur.”
FURTHER READING:
Remy, Nicholas. Demonolatry. Secaucus, N.J.: University
Books, 1974.
Lilith A female DEMON of the night and SUCCUBUS who
flies about searching for newborn children to kidnap or
strangle and sleeping men to seduce in order to produce
demon children. Lilith is a major figure in Jewish demonology,
appearing as early as 700 B.C.E. in the book of Isaiah;
she or beings similar to her also are found in myths
from other cultures around the world. She is the dark
aspect of the Mother Goddess. She is the original “scarlet
woman” and sometimes described as a screech owl, blind
by day, who sucks the breasts or navels of young children
or the dugs of goats.
In addition to Jewish folklore, Lilith appears in various
forms in Iranian, Babylonian, Sumerian, Canaanite, Persian,
Arabic, Teutonic, Mexican, Greek, English, Asian,
and Native American legends. She is sometimes associated
with other characters in legend and myth, including
the queen of Sheba and Helen of Troy. In medieval
Europe, she was often portrayed as the wife, concubine,
or grandmother of SATAN.
Lilith appears in different guises in various texts. She
is best known as the first wife of Adam, created by God
as twins joined in the back. Lilith demanded equality
with Adam and, failing to get it, left him in anger. Adam
complained to God that his wife had deserted him. God
sent three angels, Sanvi, Sansanvi, and Semangelaf, to
take Lilith back to Eden. The angels found her in the
Red Sea and threatened her with the loss of 100 of her
demon children every day unless she returned to Adam.
She refused and was punished. Lilith took revenge by
launching a reign of terror against women in childbirth,
newborn infants—particularly males—and men who
slept alone. She was forced, however, to swear to the
three angels that whenever she saw their names or images
on an amulet, she would leave infants and mothers
alone.
After the Fall, Adam spent 130 years separated from
Eve, during which Lilith went to him and satisfied him
during sleep. They had a son, who became a frog.