Sexual Predator: © Deborah Hyde 2002
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Far from simply taking sexual liberties and dishonourably disappearing, some stories relate how demons and spirits could marry mortals and then demand their conjugal rights.

In the story of Marriage to Venus, the young man needs the help of a sorcerer to break the nuptial contract. The infernal procession of preternatural beings whom the young man approaches is identical to the 'Fairy Rade' (a procession of fairies, goblins and their like) and shares similariies with The Wild Hunt.

Jewish folklore, like most others, centres around pivotal events in life: birth, death, marriage and so forth, and the marriage and/or sex with demons theme is not uncommon. Notably, the stories' emphasis is on fair and reasonable judgement by a learned rabbi according to the law, rather than simple outwitting and efficient dispatch of the demons. One tale tells of a man who inadvertently married a corpse whose finger protruded above the ground; the marriage was annulled principally because the man was already engaged to another woman, and was therefore not free to marry the corpse. When the judgement was delivered, the corpse uttered a cry of misery as she had died a spinster and had never known her 'hour of joy'. Jewish folklore also assumed that demons could produce offspring directly with humans which sometimes led to half-demonic and half-mortal progeny seeking judgements regarding inheritance from their mortal parent or tenancy in the mortal abode.

In most cultures, the importance placed on the rites of passage carries the implication that one who died before their completion became an unfulfilled spirit who who was unwilling to rest. Women who have never married constitute a sizeable proportion of Unnatural Predators, and precautions are taken, even today, to prevent such post-mortem angst. For instance it was reported in the Shandong province of China in the 1980's that a marriage was arranged by a dead woman's parents, to prevent her "suffering the shame of being a spinster in the afterlife". A matchmaker had been employed to find a family with a similar dilemma in the form of an unmarried dead son, and the ceremony of marriage was performed. The woman's body was exhumed and re-interred next to that of her new husband. Despite heavy censure from the Chinese communist regime, evidently such beliefs are still strongly adhered to and acted upon.

Again in south-east Asia in the 1980s, high numbers of migrant male workers from north-eastern Thailand were reported to be dying of a mysterious illness, which was named "Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome". Medical authorities were stumped, but the men took their own precautions, believing the deaths to be the work of a certain type of phi, a group of supernatural beings which roughly correspond to our fairy pantheon. The offender then was felt to be the phi song nang, the spirits of women who have died before marriage who have the appearance of beautiful young women, but bite and vampirishly kill men. The men took to wearing nail polish and female attire to bed, in attempt to deceive the phi as to their gender.

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Lilith
Incubi & Succubi
Demonic Marriages
Nightmare

Stories:

Marriage to Venus

Selected Further Reading:

Lilith's Cave
J Schwartz

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