the Délégation en Perse[16] where a man copulates with a vampire whose head has been severed from the body. Here the threat of cutting off her head is supposed to frighten her away from the act represented and Dr. R. Campbell-Thompson suggests[17] that “quite probably the man may have drunk from this bowl as helping the magic (although this is a doubtful point).” A vampire is depicted among the Babylonian cylinder seals in the Revue d’Assyriologie, 1909,61 concerning which the same great authority has given me the following note: “The idea is, I presume, to keep off the nocturnal visits of Lilith and her sisters. Just as the prehistoric or early people showed pictures of enemies with their heads cut off (in order that what they were there showing might by sympathetic magic actually happen), so will the man troubled by nightly emissions attributed to Lilith, depict on his amulet the terrors which are in store for these malignants.”
The Hebrew Lilith is undoubtedly borrowed from the Babylonian demon Lilîtu, a night spirit, although it is not probable that the Lilith has any connexion with the Hebrew Laîlah, “night.” It was perhaps inevitable that the Rabbis should assume some such derivation, and it must be allowed that the comparison seemed plausible enough, although it has been shown, on the evidence of the Assyrian word Lilû, that the old theory must no longer be maintained, and Lilith is almost certainly to be referred to lalû, “luxuriousness,” and lulti, “lasciviousness, lechery.” This night ghost is mentioned in Isaias xxxiv, 14, where the Vulgate has: “Et occurrent daemonia onocentauris, et pilosus clamabit alter ad alterum: ibi cubauit lamia, et inuenit sibi requiem.” Which Douay translates: “And demons and monsters shall meet, and the hairy ones shall cry out one to another, there hath the lamia lain down, and found rest for herself.” The Authorised Version has: “The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest.” Upon screech owl there is a marginal note: “Or, night monster.” The Revised Version prefers: “And the wild beasts of the desert shall meet with the wolves, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; yea, the night-monster shall settle there, and shall find her a place of rest.” There are marginal notes; satyr, “or, he-goat”; the
