Lilin () were hostile night spirits that attacked men in
ancient Mesopotamian religion
Mesopotamian religion refers to the religious beliefs and practices of the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, particularly Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia between circa 6000 BC and 400 AD, after which they largely gave way to Syria ...
and
Jewish folklore
Jewish folklore are legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales, stories, tall tales, and customs that are the traditions of Judaism. Folktales are characterized by the presence of unusual personages, by the sudd ...
.
Judaism
In
Jewish mythology
Jewish mythology is the body of myths associated with Judaism. Elements of Jewish mythology have had a profound influence on Christian mythology and on Islamic mythology, as well as on world culture in general. Christian mythology directly inhe ...
, ''Lilin'' is a term for night spirits.
Biblical apocrypha
In the
Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch 2 Baruch is a Jewish pseudepigraphical text thought to have been written in the late 1st century CE or early 2nd century CE, after the destruction of the Temple in CE 70. It is attributed to the biblical Baruch and so is associated with the Old Te ...
, ''lilin'' come from the desert and they are similar to
shedim
''Shedim'' ( he, שֵׁדִים; singular: ''Shed'') are spirits or demons in the Tanakh and Jewish mythology. However, they are not necessarily equivalent to the modern connotation of demons as evil entities. Evil spirits were thought as the ...
.
See also
*
Lilu (mythology)
A lilu or lilû is a masculine Akkadian word for a spirit or demon.
History
Jo Ann Scurlock and Burton R. Andersen (2005) see the origin of ''lilu'' in treatment of mental illness.
In Sumerian and Akkadian literature
In Akkadian literature hl ...
, Akkadian and Sumerian demons
*
Lilith
Lilith ( ; he, Wiktionary:לילית, לִילִית, Līlīṯ) is a female figure in Mesopotamian Mythology, Mesopotamian and Jewish mythology, Judaic mythology, alternatively the first wife of Adam and supposedly the primordial she-demon. ...
, Jewish female demon
*
Nocnitsa
In Slavic mythology, notsnitsa (, , , , , , , ), often referred in plural, is a nightmare spirit or demon that torments people and especially children at night. Other names for notsnitsa in East Slavic languages include kriksy, plaksy, plachky, ...
Notes
References
Mesopotamian legendary creatures
Demons in Judaism
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