
PseudoPod 796: The Horse Leech Has Two Maws
Show Notes
This story has an academic frame and that the text on the website has a number of scholarly footnotes that provide additional context. The first footnote is “In Hebrew, alukah means “horseleech”—a type of leech with many teeth that feeds on the throats of cattle. According to the Biblical scholars I have spoken to, alukah can also mean “blood-lusting monster.” Historically, the alukah have been closely associated with Lilith or are thought to be her direct descendants. Some describe them as a “Hebrew succubus,” some horrific variety of vampire. Others describe the alukah as simply demons appearing mainly in rabbinic literature. The only Biblical reference I have found to this creature is paraphrased at the start of this journal.”
The Horse Leech Has Two Maws
written by Michael Picco
Excerpted from the journal of Micha Slauss, Theresienstadt Holocaust Memorial Museum
They have teeth like swords and fangs like knives.
They devour the poor from the earth and the needy from among humanity.
The alukah have two maws—one that bites, and another that suckles at the wound.
Always they cry out: “More! Give us more!
-The Words of Agur, Proverbs 30:14–16
They came with us.
They came with us, moving from body to body in the fetid twilight of the cattle cars—shifting, changing, feeding, masquerading first as children, as misshapen dwarves, as shrunken old women. They came with us as we huddled and cried and grieved, crawling over our bodies like so much vermin as the death trains plodded toward our extinction.
They came with us. Those…things. Those terrible, dreadful things. The Daughters of Lilith. Alukah. Striya. Penanggalan. Wampyr. (Continue Reading…)