Incubus

In the medieval European tradition, a demon is a male tempter. Incubus, from Latin incubare — "to lie on" or "to lie on top".

The idea of an incubate combines two ideas: the first of them is about gravity, immobilizing and suffocating a person at night; the second and probably secondary is about nocturnal sexual intercourse with some non—human being (demon).

The idea of a strangler demon goes back to the image of a nocturnal aggressor ("mara") present in the mythology of many peoples, sitting on his chest and causing suffocation and immobilization. Now this phenomenon is called "sleep paralysis".

He usually attacks women and rapes them in their sleep. During the day, they are disembodied shadows, since these creatures do not have their own body, but they can materialize in the body of a deceased person, or use human meat to create their own body from it, or even incarnate into the body of a real living person.

In most cases, the incubus is described as an ugly creature, often resembling a goat (one of the images of the devil), although this appearance was attributed to most demons during the Middle Ages.

Thus in the Compendium Maleficarum (1608) it is said:

"An incubus can take both male and female forms, sometimes he appears as a man in the prime of life, sometimes as a satyr; in front of a woman who is known as a witch, he usually takes the form of a lustful goat."

Other images include incubi in the guise of a dog, a cat, a deer, a bull, a roe deer, a bird, especially a crow or a stork, as well as in the form of a snake. However, even the animal appearance did not prevent the incubus from having a carnal relationship with a woman.

Some believed that it was possible to get pregnant from an incubus, since the demon collects the seed of corpses or the seed emitted during nocturnal eruptions or masturbation, and "thanks to speed and knowledge of physical laws, preserves this seed in its natural warmth."

In the medieval treatise "Hammer of Witches" it is stated that demons as succubi collect male semen, store it in their body, and then as incubi fertilize women, in accordance with the position of the stars, in order to produce offspring initially predisposed to evil under the influence of planets.

Thus, children could be born from him (half people, half animals). Sometimes incubus children are described as no less ugly than their parents (such descriptions coincide with descriptions of parasites, such as worms and tapeworms).

Others, on the contrary, believed that it was impossible to get pregnant from an incubus, since his seed was nothing more than a fake.