Lilith - the Vampire Mother

Lilith (Hebrew לילית) is a female Mesopotamian demon associated with wind and was thought to be a bearer of disease, illness, and death. The figure of Lilith first appeared in a class of wind and storm demons or spirits as Lilitu, in Sumeria, circe 3000 B.C. Many scholars place the origin of the phonetic name "Lilith" at somewhere around 700 B.C. Lilith appears as a night demon in the Talmud and Midrash and as a screech owl in the King James version of the Bible.

In Mesopotamian mythology

Kiskil-lilla

The mention of a she-demon that is usually identified with Lilith is ki-sikil-lil-la-ke4, a female being in the Sumerian prologue to the Gilgamesh epic. Ki-sikil-lil-la-ke is sometimes translated as Lila's maiden, companion, his beloved or maid. Akin to this, Ki-sikil-ud-da-ka-ra means "the maiden who has stolen the light" or " the maiden who has seized the light". Texts describe Lillake as the "gladdener of all hearts" and "maiden who screeches constantly".

The name of the male companion Lila, is likewise known from this period. The father of Gilgamesh was named as Lilu (= Lila) on the Sumerian king's list. Lila (Lilu, Lillu) is one of four storm demons of the incubi-succubae class. Little is known about the nature of Lila. It is said of him that he attempts to disturb or seduce women in their sleep by night, while Lilitu appears to men in their erotic dreams.

Kramer translates:

a dragon had built its nest at the foot of the tree
the Zu-bird was raising its young in the crown,
and the demon Lilith had built her house in the middle.
[…]
Then the Zu-bird flew into the mountains with its young,
while Lilith, petrified with fear, tore down her house and fled into the wilderness

Wolkenstein translates the same passage:

a serpent who could not be charmed made its nest in the roots of the tree,
The Anzu bird set his young in the branches of the tree,
And the dark maid Lilith built her home in the trunk.

Some scholars dispute identification with Lilith. However, most sources consider it definitive. The Anchor Bible Dictionary (Lowell K. Handy) states the following on the subject:

"Two sources of information previously used to define Lilith are both suspect. Kramer translated ki-sikil-lil-la-ke4 as 'Lilith', in a Sumerian Gilgamesh fragment. The text relates an incident where this female takes up lodging in a tree trunk which has a Zu-bird perched in the branches and a snake living in the roots. This text was used to interpret a sculpture of a woman with bird talons for feet as being a depiction of Lilith. From the beginning this interpretation was questioned so that after some debate neither the female in the story, nor the figure are assumed to be Lilith." (Vol. 4, p. 324)

The Burney relief

The Gilgamesh passage quoted above has in turn been applied by some to the Burney relief (Norman Colville collection), which dates to roughly 1950 BC and is a sculpture of a woman who has bird talons and is flanked by owls.

The key to this identification lies in the bird talons and the owls. While the relief may depict the demon Kisikil-lilla-ke of the Gilgamesh passage or a goddess, identification with Lilitu is more tenuous and likely influenced by the "screech owl" translation of the KJV. Most scholars accept it to actually be Inanna or her underworld sister Ereshkigal. However, the real identity of this figure remains inconclusive. A very similar relief dating to roughly the same period is preserved in the Louvre (AO 6501).

Mesopotamian Lilitu

Around 3000 BC, Lilitu/Lilith's first appearance was that in a class of spirits called Lilitu. Here, Lilith was not thought of as a central figure. The Lilitu were said to prey upon children, women in childbirth, and women and were winged spirits with bird feet. Early incantations against the Lilitu associates them with Zu birds (An eagle or type of bird of prey.), lions, storms, and disease. This begins the figure known as Lilith, a disease bearing spirit whose presence was feared to bring illness, death, and terrors by night. Early portrayals of lilitu are known as having Zu bird talons for feet and wings. The name Lilitu/Lilith stood for multiple spirits as well as a single being.

Lilith's epithet was "the beautiful maiden". She had no milk in her breasts and was unable to bear children. She was believed to be a harlot and vampire that would chose lovers and never let them go, but without giving them any real satisfaction.

Lilu, a similar male demon, was one of the four demons that belonged a vampire or incubus-succubi class. The other three were Lilitu, the she-demon, Ardat lili (Lilith's handmaid), who visited men by night and bore them children, and Irdu lili, who was the male counterpart to Ardat lili and would visit women by night and beget children by them. These demons were orginally storm demons. However, because of popular mistaken etymology they became to be regarded as night demons.

Sumerian accounts began to depict Lilitu as the handmaiden of Inanna, particularly presiding over fertility rites. "In older Sumerian texts...it says that Inanna — who corresponds to the Babylonian Ishtar — has sent the beautiful, seductive, and unmarried prostitute Lilitu out into the streets and fields in order to lead men astray". Furthermore, she governs a class of succubi and is called "strangler," a common title in later Lilith stories.

Identical to the Babylo-Sumerian Lilitu, the Akkadian Ardat-Lili presided over temple prostitution. Ardat is derived from "ardatu", a title of prostitutes and young unmarried women, meaning "Maiden". Like Lilith, Ardat Lili was a figure of disease and uncleanliness. One magical text tells of how Ardat Lili had come to 'seize' a sick man.

Akin to the Sumerian and Akkadian accounts, the Babylonians' texts depict Lilitu as the servant of the mother goddess Ishtar. Presiding over sexuality, prostitution, and fertility. However, like her counterparts she is still quite vicious and devouring. Some Babylonian texts mention her as the chief prostitute to Ishtar's temple. While others state that La-bar-tu, the Assyrian counterpart, Lamashtu, as the handmaiden to Inanna/Ishtar.

A similar related Mesopotamian demon, Lamashtu, also contributed to the evolution of the Lilitu myth. Lamashtu was a demon thought to harm children and women during childbirth. This demon was described as having bird talons for feet, having a lioness head and is often depicted as a fearsome creature with wild animals. In further fashion of Lilith, she also had statues, amulets, and incantations against her.

From Arslan Tash (Aleppo National Museum), a site in modern day Syria, comes the "Lilith Prophylactic". Lilith is pictured as a sphinx like creature devouring a child. Similar to the medieval period's amulets to ward off the demon Lilith, this inscribed plaque features an Phoenician-Canaanite dialect incantation against winged night demons called "Lili".

O, Flyer in a dark chamber, Go away at once, O Lili!

These lines are part of a incantation to protect women in childbirth. T.H. Gaster's translation wields Lilith as the demon mentioned in this incantation.

Related myths

A figure often compared to Lilith is the Greek Lamia. Said to be a daughter of the goddess Hecate or turned into a monster by the jealous Hera, she has a cannibalistic appetite for children, and is often blamed for kidnapping them. Lamia has a role akin to Lilith in that, she too, is said to have a powerful, dangerous, sexual appetite for men.

Lamia is described as appearing from the torso up as a woman and serpentine from the torso down. She presides over vampiric, blood-sucking Lamiai, (similar to succubi in Medieval myths) and is said to give birth to the horrible demoness Empusae, a creature compared to lilim.

Lilith in the Bible

The Book of Isaiah 34:14, describing the desolation of Edom, is the only occurrence of Lilith in the Hebrew Bible:

Hebrew (ISO 259): pagšu ṣiyyim et-ʾiyyim w-saʿir ʿal-rēʿhu yiqra ʾakšam hirgiʿah lilit u-maṣʾah lah manoḫ
morpho-syntactic analysis: "yelpers meet-[perfect] howlers; hairy-ones cry-[imperfect] to fellow. liyliyth reposes-[perfect], acquires-[perfect] resting-place."
KJV: "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."

Schrader (Jahrbuch für Protestantische Theologie, 1. 128) and Levy (ZDMG 9. 470, 484) suggest that Lilith was a goddess of the night, known also by the Jewish exiles in Babylon. Evidence for Lilith being a goddess rather than a demon is lacking. Isaiah dates to the 6th century BC, and the presence of Jews in Babylon would coincide with the attested references to the Līlītu in Babylonian demonology.

The Septuagint translates onokentauros, apparently for lack of a better word, since also the saʿir "satyrs" earlier in the verse are translated with daimon onokentauros. The "wild beasts of the island and the desert" are omitted altogether, and the "crying to his fellow" is also done by the daimon onokentauros.

In Horace (De Arte Poetica liber, 340), Hieronymus of Cardia translated Lilith as Lamia, a witch who steals children, similar to the Breton Korrigan, in Greek mythology described as a Libyan queen who mated with Zeus. After Zeus abandoned Lamia, Hera stole Lamia's children, and Lamia took revenge by stealing other women's children.

The screech owl translation of the KJV is without precedent, and apparently together with the "owl" (yanšup, probably a water bird) in 34:11, and the "great owl" (qippoz, properly a snake,) of 34:15 an attempt to render the eerie atmosphere of the passage by choosing suitable animals for difficult to translate Hebrew words. It should be noted that this particular species of owl is associated with the vampiric Strix of Roman legend.

Later translations include:

• night-owl (Young, 1898)
• night monster (ASV 1901, NASB 1995)
• night hag (RSV 1947)
• night creature (NIV 1978, NKJV 1982, NLT 1996)
• nightjar (New World Translation, 1984)
• vampires (Moffatt Translation, 1922).

Jewish tradition

A Hebrew tradition exists in which an amulet is inscribed with the names of three angels (Senoy, Sansenoy, and Semangelof) and placed around the neck of newborn boys in order to protect them from the lilin until their circumcision. There is also a Hebrew tradition to wait three years before a boy's hair is cut so as to attempt to trick Lilith into thinking the child is a girl so that the boy's life may be spared.

Dead Sea scrolls

The appearance of Lilith in the Dead Sea Scrolls is somewhat more contentious, with one indisputable reference in the Song for a Sage (4Q510-511), and a promising additional allusion found by A. Baumgarten in The Seductress (4Q184). The first and irrefutable Lilith reference in the Song occurs in 4Q510, fragment 1:

"And I, the Instructor, proclaim His glorious splendour so as to frighten and to te[rrify] all the spirits of the destroying angels, spirits of the bastards, demons, Lilith, howlers, and [desert dwellers…] and those which fall upon men without warning to lead them astray from a spirit of understanding and to make their heart and their […] desolate during the present dominion of wickedness and predetermined time of humiliations for the sons of lig[ht], by the guilt of the ages of [those] smitten by iniquity – not for eternal destruction, [bu]t for an era of humiliation for transgression."

Akin to Isaiah 34:14, this liturgical text both cautions against the presence of supernatural malevolence and assumes familiarity with Lilith; distinct from the biblical text, however, this passage does not function under any socio-political agenda, but instead serves in the same capacity as An Exorcism (4Q560) and Songs to Disperse Demons (11Q11) insomuch that it comprises incantations – comparable to the Arslan Tash relief examined above – used to "help protect the faithful against the power of these spirits." The text is thus, to a community "deeply involved in the realm of demonology," an exorcism hymn.

Another text discovered at Qumran, conventionally associated with the Book of Proverbs, credibly also appropriates the Lilith tradition in its description of a precarious, winsome woman – The Seductress (4Q184). The ancient poem – dated to the first century BCE but plausibly much older – describes a dangerous woman and consequently warns against encounters with her. Customarily, the woman depicted in this text is equated to the "strange woman" of Proverbs 2 and 5, and for good reason; the parallels are instantly recognizable:

"Her house sinks down to death, And her course leads to the shades. All who go to her cannot return And find again the paths of life." (Proverbs 2:18-19)

"Her gates are gates of death, and from the entrance of the house she sets out towards Sheol. None of those who enter there will ever return, and all who possess her will descend to the Pit." (4Q184)

However, what this association does not take into account are additional descriptions of the "Seductress" from Qumran that cannot be found attributed to the "strange woman" of Proverbs; namely, her horns and her wings: "a multitude of sins is in her wings." The woman illustrated in Proverbs is without question a prostitute, or at the very least the representation of one, and the sort of individual with whom that text’s community would have been familiar. The "Seductress" of the Qumran text, conversely, could not possibly have represented an existent social threat given the constraints of this particular ascetic community. Instead, the Qumran text utilizes the imagery of Proverbs to explicate a much broader, supernatural threat – the threat of the demoness Lilith.

Folk tradition

The Alphabet of Ben Sira is considered to be the oldest form of the story of Lilith as Adam's first wife. Whether or not this certain tradition is older is not known. Scholars tend to date Ben Sira between 8th and 10th centuries. Its real author is anonymous, but it is falsely attributed to the sage Ben Sira. The amulets used against Lilith that were thought to derive from this tradition are in fact, dated as being much older. While the concept of Eve having a predecessor is not exclusive to Ben Sira or new and can be found in Genesis Rabbah, the idea that this predecessor was Lilith is. According to Gershom Scholem the author of the Zohar, R. Moses de Leon, was aware of the the folk tradition of Lilith, as well another story, possibly older, that may be conflicting.

The idea that Adam had a wife prior to Eve may have developed from an interpretation of the Book of Genesis and its dual creation accounts; while Genesis 2:22 describes God's creation of Eve from Adam's rib, an earlier passage, 1:27, already indicates that a woman had been made: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." The text places Lilith's creation after God's words in Genesis 2:18 that "it is not good for man to be alone". He forms Lilith out of the clay from which he made Adam, but the two bicker. Lilith claims that since she and Adam were created in the same way, they were equal, and she refuses to "lie below" him:

After God created Adam, who was alone, He said, 'It is not good for man to be alone.' He then created a woman for Adam, from the earth, as He had created Adam himself, and called her Lilith. Adam and Lilith immediately began to fight. She said, 'I will not lie below,' and he said, 'I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while I am to be the superior one.' Lilith responded, 'We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth.' But they would not listen to one another. When Lilith saw this, she pronounced the Ineffable Name and flew away into the air. (In this act, Lilith becomes unique in that she is not touched by "original sin", having left the garden before Eve came into existence. Lilith also reveals herself to be powerful in her own right by knowing the name of God).

Adam stood in prayer before his Creator: 'Sovereign of the universe!' he said, 'the woman you gave me has run away.' At once, the Holy One, blessed be He, sent these three angels Senoy, Sansenoy, and Semangelof, to bring her back.

"Said the Holy One to Adam, 'If she agrees to come back, what is made is good. If not, she must permit one hundred of her children to die every day.' The angels left God and pursued Lilith, whom they overtook in the midst of the sea, in the mighty waters wherein the Egyptians were destined to drown. They told her God's word, but she did not wish to return. The angels said, 'We shall drown you in the sea.'

"'Leave me!' she said. 'I was created only to cause sickness to infants. If the infant is male, I have dominion over him for eight days after his birth, and if female, for twenty days.'

"When the angels heard Lilith's words, they insisted she go back. But she swore to them by the name of the living and eternal God: 'Whenever I see you or your names or your forms in an amulet, I will have no power over that infant.' She also agreed to have one hundred of her children die every day. Accordingly, every day one hundred demons perish, and for the same reason, we write the angels names on the amulets of young children. When Lilith sees their names, she remembers her oath, and the child recovers."

The background and purpose of The Alphabet of Ben-Sira is unclear. It is a collection of stories about heroes of the Bible and Talmud, it may have been a collection of folk-tales, a refutation of Christian, Karaite, or other separatist movements; its content seems so offensive to contemporary Jews that it was even suggested that it could be an anti-Jewish satire, although, in any case, the text was accepted by the Jewish mystics of medieval Germany.

The Alphabet of Ben-Sira is the earliest surviving source of the story, and the conception that Lilith was Adam's first wife became only widely known with the 17th century Lexicon Talmudicum of Johannes Buxtorf.

An Armenian writer Avetik Isahakyan describes Lilit (not Lilith) as Adam's first wife. But here God created Lilit from fire and Adam from soil. Lilit didn't like how Adam smells like soil. In the end she escapes with the Satan in the shape of snake. And only after that God created Eva from Adam's bone, so that she would always be with him. "But though Adam's lips said Eve, but his soul always echoed Lilith."

In the folk tradition that arose in the early middle ages Lilith, a dominate female demon, became identified with Asmodeus, King of Demons, as his queen. Asmodeus was already well known by this time because of the legends about him in the Talmud. Thus, the merging of Lilith and Asmodeus was inevitable. The fecund myth of Lilith grew to include legends about another world and by some accounts this other world existed side by side with this one, Yenne Velt is Yiddish for this described "Other World". In this case Asmodeus and Lilith were believed to procreate demonic offspring endlessly and spread chaos at every turn. Many disasters were blamed on both of them, causing wine to turn into vineger, men to be impotent, women unable to give birth, and it was Lilith who was blamed for the loss of infant life. The presence of Lilith and her cohorts were considered very real at this time.

Two primary characteristics are seen in these legends about Lilith: Lilith as the incarnation of lust, causing men to be led astray, and Lilith as a child killing witch, who stangles helpless neonates. These two aspects of the Lilith legend seemed to have evolved separately, in there is hardly a tale were Lilith emcompasses both roles. But the aspect of the witchlike role that Lilith plays broadens her archetype of the destructive side of witchcraft. Such stories are commonly found among Jewish folklore.

One story tells of how a daughter of Lilith dwelling in a mirror came to possess a narcissistic young girl. (Schwartz) A wife had bought a mirror and hung it in a room of her daughter. The mirror had been hung in a den of demons and a daughter of Lilith resided in it. Whenever the mirror was moved from the haunted house the demoness within went with it. The girl spent a lot of time gazing at herself in the mirror, each time drawing closer and closer into Lilith's web. The daughter of Lilith watched the young girl's every movement. Biding her time, one day Lilith's daughter slipped out and possessed the girl, through the eyes. Seizing control of the girl, Lilith's daughter dominated the girl's every move. Driven by the evil of Lilith's daughter's wishes and desires, the girl became promiscuous and ran around with many men. (Schwartz)

It is said that every mirror is a passage into the Otherworld and leads to Lilith's cave. The cave that Lilith went to after she had abandoned Adam and Eden for all time and the same cave that Lilith took up demon lovers in. From these unholy unions, Lilith birthed multitudes of demons, who flocked from that cave and infested the world. When these demons want to return they simply enter the nearest mirror, that is why Lilith makes her home in every mirror.(ibid)

Lilith in the Romantic period

During the Romantic period (1789 - 1832) Lilith's image began to change dramatically. Goethe and John Keats are two early Romantic authors that were credited to being the first to be influential in the shifting of the image of Lilith and to bring her legend into a larger, more mainstream audience. Later, during the Pre-Raphaelites period, Dante Gabriel Rossetti was famously responsible for bringing a new interpretation of Lilith's identity, image, and myth, where she was adapted by feminists as a modern heroine. A primary consideration for Romantics was the favouring of innovation against traditional forms and styles.

Lilith in Faust

In the earliest Romantic work, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 1808 work Faust Part I, Lilith makes another literary appearance, one that has been seen in nearly 600 years since the Zohar. This appearance is quite significant when compared to the ancient works, as Lilith begins to take on a new dimension and a more positive role.

The legends about Dr. Faustus may have begun about 1540. In most versions are his quests for forbidden and often hidden knowledge. During a "Walpurgis" Night scene of Faust by Goethe, Lilith makes one appearance:

Faust:
Who's that there?

Mephistopheles:
Take a good look.
Lilith.

Faust:
Lilith? Who is that?

Mephistopheles:
Adam's wife, his first. Beware of her.
Her beauty's one boast is her dangerous hair.
When Lilith winds it tight around young men
She doesn't soon let go of them again.

(1992 Greenberg translation, lines 4206–4211)

With her "ensnaring" sexuality, Goethe draws upon ancient legends of Lilith which associate her with Adam. Perhaps, more importantly, is the identifying marker of Lilith, her long, ensnaring hair, an image recounted in more familiar ancient tales. This image is the first "modern" literary mention of Lilith and continues to dominate throughout the nineteenth century.

After Mephistopheles offers this warning to Faust, he then, quite ironically, encourages Faust to dance with "the Pretty Witch". Lilith and Faust engage in a short conversation, where Lilith recounts the days spent in Eden.

Faust: [dancing with the young witch]
A lovely dream I dreamt one day
I saw a green-leaved apple tree,
Two apples swayed upon a stem,
So tempting! I climbed up for them.

The Pretty Witch:
Ever since the days of Eden
Apples have been man's desire.
How overjoyed I am to think, sir,
Apples grow, too, in my garden.

(1992 Greenberg translation, lines 4216 – 4223)

Here Goethe chooses to elaborate on the Eden scene, focusing on the popular Lilith's identity as the first wife of Adam rather than a child-killing and disease-bearing demon.

This brief mention is important, as it marks Lilith's debut in modern literature. Additionally, her character being for the most part is unnecessary, this establishes that Goethe's intentions and reason in invoking her image and associations may differ. It also suggests familiarity with the figure of Lilith. This text heavily influenced the later Romantic art and literature of Lilith and how she is often portrayed and continues to dominate representations throughout the 19th century.

Keats, Lilith, and "Lamia"

In Keats's poem: "Lamia" (1819), the two tales of Lamia and Lilith begin to assimilate and forge a connection.

The title female character is never referred to as Lilith, but the similarities between the two are too prominent to be overlooked. An enchantress and she-demon, Lamia is the archetypal Romantic representation of what Lilith will become. She is never branded as "immoral" or "evil" by Keats. The reader is invited to feel Lamia's pain under her unfortunate circumstances. This sparks the beginning of the transformation of Lilith and Lamia. While both are associated with wickedness, these inherently negative aspects are redefined in a way to make it look unimportant.

The poem begins with Lamia stuck in a serpent's body. It never states how she became that way, but the poem hints that she had a previous human existence. She appeals to Hermes: I was a woman, let me have once more / A woman's shape, and charming as before. / I love a youth of Corinth - O the bliss! / Give me my woman's form, and place me where he is" (I.117-120). The poem continues with Lamia's falling in love with a traveller named Menippus Lycius (whose name is an epithet of the god Apollo.)

"Lamia" introduces the dual sexual nature of Lilith: virgin but also seductress. The paradox is first introduced in these lines: "A virgin purest lipp'd, yet in the lore / Of love deep learned to the red heart's core" (I.189-190). This contradiction is also present in founding texts, some of which that claim Lilith gives birth to children in the hundreds each day, while she, likewise, murders hundreds of children.

The most important aspect of Keats's Lilith-themed poem is that of her association with excess. Her words are spoken as if "through bubbling honey," her song is "too sweet," and she herself is described as "bitter-sweet" (I.64, 299, 59). Within the poem, Lycius himself is driven to comment on this excess, professing that Lamia's mere presence invokes "a hundred thirsts." Lycius further proclaims that he will die without Lamia and that her memory alone is enough to kill (ln. 269-270).

The characterization of Lamia bears great similarities to the figure of Lilith; many other facets are omitted on purpose, such as the night terror aspect. Although she remains a seductress, her intentions are not considered immoral nor condemned. As the Norton Anthology introduction to the poem states: "Lamia is an enchantress, a liar, and a calculating expert in amour; but she apparently intends no harm, is genuinely in love, and is very beautiful" (797).

Goethe simply ignores her negative aspects, Keats altogether rewrites Lilith's original identity. Even the serpent, a symbol in popular Western lore denoted with evil and a cult animal of Lilith's, is shed in the body of the poem. From this "evil" evolves a beautiful and sensuous womanly figure. Many scholars of Romantic literature further associate the unnamed figure in another Keats poem, "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", to that of Lilith. Akin to Lamia, the figure of the poem is a beautiful seductress associated with death.

Lilith in literature

• Lilith is a book containing the character Lilith by the author George Macdonald, who in turn heavily influenced C.S. Lewis.
• George Bernard Shaw has Lilith make a grand speech expressing some of his philosophy at the end of his play As Far as Thought Can Reach, part of his five-part series Back to Methuselah (1921). C.S. Lewis referred to this as "nonsense" in his essay "The Weight of Glory".
• In C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the central antagonist, the White Witch, is said to be a descendant of Lilith.
• In Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series Lilith is a demon of Hell.
• Lilith is the main antagonist in the book Resurrection by Steve Alten.
• Lilith is a character in the novel Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story by Clive Barker, published in 2001.
• Lilith is the name of a main character in Octavia E. Butler's trilogy, Xenogenesis. The trilogy draws upon much of the Lilith mythology.
• In his 1924 novel The Magic Mountain, German author Thomas Mann makes antagonist Lodovico Settembrini refer to main character Hans Castorp's romantic interest, Clawdia Chauchat as Lilith.
• The reference in the above-mentioned literary work is again a quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust I, in which Lilith appears among the witches on Walpurgisnacht.
• Lilith is an antagonistic character in the play "The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer." In this play the character of Lilith exists in Oppenheimer's mind and never touches the ground.
• Song of Lilith is a published poem written by Joy Kogawa as an interpertation of Lilith's flight from the Garden of Eden and the aftermath.
• Lilith is also a prominant figure in the book series "The Nightside" by Simon Green. Once again she is displayed as Adam's first wife, who laid with the devil and created demons. Her character is hinted at for the first three books, but her character does not show up until book four, "Hex and the City".
• Lilith is the name of the vampire queen in the Nora Roberts "Circle" trilogy, released in 2006.
• Lilith in World of Darkness is said to have had a hand in the creation of Daemons, Werewolfs, and Fae's. As well as being a supernatural 'Ascended' human or mage herself. She is also believed to be a second generation Vampire granting her immortality after her romance with Caine, the original Vampire. These things would make her the most powerful being in existence in the World of Darkness Universe, Book of Nod.

source: Wikipedia