Cambion

Cambion
"Exchange and Abduction" by Martino Di Bartolomeo (1390)
General Information
Type	Partial fiends
Statistics
Similar creatures	Changeling (human/fairy hybrid) Demideity (partial deity) Dhampir (partial vampire) Nephilim (human/angel Hybrid)

A cambion is a mythical demonic offspring of a succubus and an incubus.

To create a cambion a succubus must extract the semen of a man in his sleep, and then pass on the sperm to an incubus, which then transfers the semen to a sleeping woman, who becomes pregnant. In the process the demonic aspects of the incubus and succubus transfer onto the child that is produced.

The cambion child is typically sickly and bad-behaved, and often times malformed in some manner. According to traditional beliefs cambions tended to live shortened lives. Cambions may have been a pre-scientific explanation for birth defects and infant illnesses and mortality.

In literature and modern fantasy cambions are often shown as half-human, half-devil creatures with fiendish powers.

Medieval Perspectives on Cambici

In modern times, Demons and fairy are widely considered to be two different classifications of creatures. This wasn't always the case. In medieval thought the line between the two was blurry, and the terms "Demon" and "Fairy" were sometimes used interchangeably. In medieval times, the term "Incubus" was the most common scholarly term for "fairy," though in modern times Incubus specifically describes a type of demon.

Another term for a cambion found in medieval literature is "changeling." Stories of changelings describe either a human baby being replaced by a fairy or demon and then raised by humans, or a human-demon or human-fairy hybrid. Over time though, the terms cambion and changeling diverged as people's views on demons and fairies diverged. In modern fantasy and folklore a "cambion" is specifically a human-demon hybrid, usually the offspring of a incubus or succubus, while the term "changeling" is specifically a human-fairy hybrid.

"Merlin" by Robert de Boron (1200 CE):

In the poem Merlin by Robert de Boron, an origin story for Merlin from Arthurian Legend is given in which Merlin is said to be a cambion. The poem begins with a group of demons complaining about their utter defeat by Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, who after dying on the cross descended into Hell and rescued Adam and Eve and all of humanity that was in Hell before triumphantly resurrecting:

"The Enemy (the Devil) was filled with rage when Our Lord descended into Hell and freed Adam and Eve and as many more as He pleased. When the demons realized what had happened they were bewildered, and gathered together and said:

‘Who is this man who has broken into our fastness? Nothing we've hidden is safe from him: he does whatever he pleases! We thought any man of woman born would be ours; but this one is defeating and tormenting us! How was he born of woman without any involvement with earthly pleasure? He's outwitting us as we've outwitted other men and women!’

Then one of the demons replied, saying: ‘Our own power has been turned against us. Do you remember how the prophets spoke and said that the son of God would come to Earth to save the sinners Eve and Adam and as many more as he pleased? We seized those who said this and tormented them more than the other sinners, but they seemed to be untroubled by our tortures, and comforted the other sinners, saying that the one who was coming to Earth would save them from the pains of Hell. And what the prophets predicted has now happened! He's robbed us of all we had – we can keep nothing from him! He's rescued all who believed in his nativity – though by what power we just don't know.’

‘Don't you know, then,’ said another, ‘that he has them baptized in water in his name? They cleanse themselves in water in the name of the Father and of the Mother so that we can no longer take them as ours; it's infuriating – we used to take them wherever we found them! Now they're lost to us because of this washing! We have no power over them – until they return to us by their own sinful deeds. Thus our power diminishes while his increases. What's more, he's left ministers on Earth to save the people – however much they may have been inclined to our work – if they'll repent and abandon our ways and do as these ministers command. So we've lost them all! Great is the spiritual work of Our Lord, who to save mankind came to Earth and was born of woman and suffered earthly torments. And he came without our knowledge and without any involvement with human pleasure."

(Translation from Middle English)

The demons then come up with the idea of creating a supernatural being that could rival Christ:

"And they have done us great damage and hindering. The more they told of His (Jesus') coming, the more we caused them anger and disease. But to us it seems, it only quickened His coming to deliver them from our danger. But how might we have a man of our kind that might speak and have our cunning and mastery (power), and have the knowledge, as we have, of things that are done and said, and of things of the past, and that he might be on Earth conversant with these other? For it would benefit us, as such, that he would be much help in beguiling His people, as the prophets beguiled us, and told that what we believe never might have been. In the same wise, should such a one tell all things that were done and said, both of that has past and of things to come, he would be believed by many people."

(Translation from Middle English)

One of the demons comes up with a plan to create a cambion that could be such a rival:

"I have the power to sow seed in a women and make her conceive, and I have someone that will do my all my bidding."

(Translation from Middle English)

The demons then possess a wealthy pious man and cause him to rape his own daughter. The daughter seemed to know that her father was possessed, and sought out a priest to repent. She tells the priest what happened, and he blesses and protects her with the sign of the cross. The baby that is born is the wizard Merlin, and due to the priest's blessing, his baptism shortly after birth, and Merlin's mother's piety, he ends up intrinsically good instead of evil, all the while keeping his supernatural powers, and the demon's plan is foiled.

"De Universo" by Bishop William of Auvergne (13th Century):

"You should not overlook what is said about infants whom the convention calls cambiones, about which the most widespread are old wives’ tales: that they are the children of demon incubi, substituted by female demons so that they are fed by them as if they are their own and are hence called cambiones, that is, cambici, as if swapped and substituted to female parents for their own children. They say that these are thin, always wailing, drinking so much milk that it takes four wet-nurses to feed one. They are seen to stay with their wet-nurses for many years, after which they fly away, or rather vanish."

(Translation via Stainton and Goodey)

"The Malleus Maleficarum" (the Hammer of Witches) by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger (1487):

"Another terrible thing which God permits to happen to men is when their own children are taken away from women, and strange children are put in their place by devils. And these children, which are commonly called changelings [campsores], or in the German tongue Wechselkinder, are of three kinds. For some are always ailing and crying, and yet the milk of four women is not enough to satisfy them. Some are generated by the operation of Incubus devils, of whom, however, they are not the sons, but of that man from whom the devil has received the semen as a Succubus, or whose semen he has collected from some nocturnal pollution in sleep. For these children are sometimes, by Divine permission, substituted for the real children.

And there is a third kind, when the devils at times appear in the form of young children and attach themselves to the nurses. But all three kinds have this in common, that though they are very heavy, they are always ailing and do not grow, and cannot receive enough milk to satisfy them, and are often reported to have vanished away."

"Table Talks" by Martin Luther (1566):

"This devil will suck and eat like an animal, but it will not grow. Thus it is said that changelings and killcrops do not live longer than eighteen or nineteen years."

Other Hybrids of Humans and Spiritual Beings

• Nephilim (half-humans half-fallen angels)
• Dhampirs (some vampires are demonic like lilitu)
  • Empusae

Gallery

Image gallery of Cambion