Shedim.
| “ | The Shedim are..bloody hell they're somethin' else. One account says that they're the descendants of Adam and Lilith, though I wouldn't bet my Silk Cuts on that since Lilith couldn't stand the clingy sod. The other is that they're supposed to be one of God's "prototypes" during the early days of Creation. As He was makin' em, He stopped to rest on the Sabbath, but after the Sabbath, He left them how they were. Complete like all things after the seventh day of rest. Well, I say bollocks to that. They're incomplete, dark, and terrible monstrous bastards. The fuckin' Devil himself couldn't risk usin' em as his own fighting force. | „ |
| ~ John Constantine |
The Shedim are a type of spirit or demon in Jewish folklore. Both times the name appears in the Tanakh, as it deals with child or animal sacrifice to false gods that are called demons.
Description[]
Shedim are said to have had the feet and claws of a rooster and share some characteristics both of human and angels. Like angels, they know the future and have wings, but like humans they eat, drink, procreate and die. They can also cause sickness and misfortune.
Supposedly, sinful people sacrificed their daughters to the shedim, but it is unclear if the sacrifice consisted in the murdering of the victims or in the sexual satisfaction of the demons. To see if the shedim were present in some place, ashes were thrown to the ground or floor, and then their footsteps became visible.
The shedim are supposed to follow the dead or fly around graves. There are many things that one is admonished not to do in order to avoid invoking shadim, such as whistling or even saying the word "shedim." It is also said that that one should not seal up windows completely because it traps shedim in the house.
Overview[]
According to one legend, the shedim are descendants of serpents, or of demons in the form of serpents, alluding to the Serpent in Eden as related in Genesis. To others they are descendants of Adam and Lilith. Another legend said that God had started making them, intending for them to be humans, but did not complete their creation because he was resting during the Sabbath. Even after the Sabbath, he left them how they were to show that when the Sabbath comes, all work must be viewed as complete. They were believed to have been destroyed by the Flood or were eternally imprisoned in the Red Sea.
Another more believable legend is that the shedim are in a sense creations of Eisheth Zenunim, one of the sisters of Eve and a queen of Hell. Eisheth feeds upon the souls of man, specifically those that have fallen from the virtuous ways of God. Upon devouring them, she would regurgitate these souls back out, distorting and warping them into hideous monstrosities that mirror the sins and darkness these souls once committed in the world of the living. Eisheth mostly does this to parade the imperfections of man to God and Heaven.
In another account, when the shedim resided on Earth, their forms were unidentifiable by mortal eyes, akin to being "works in progress" according to John Constantine. When abandoning God's ways, they are sent to Hell after they die only to be then devoured by Eisheth where their monstrous forms become physical by Eisheth's malefic powers. Constantine states that Eisheth's hand in corrupting the shedim led to her finishing the Almighty's work but butchering His original designs for them.