What We Talk About When We Talk About Folklore

kaigetheripper:

Incubus

Incubus is a demon in male form supposed to lie upon sleepers, especially women, in order to have sexual intercourse with them, according to a number of mythological and legendary traditions. An incubus may pursue sexual relations with a woman in order to father a child, to carry on its legend.

 Some sources indicate that it may be identified by its unnaturally large or cold penis. Tradition holds that repeated intercourse with an incubus may result in the deterioration of health or death. Victims may have been experiencing waking dreams or sleep paralysis. The influence of incubi could also have been invoked to explain otherwise “unexplainable” pregnancies or real rapists might have been described as incubus to escape punishment.