The Cambiones [Christian demonology; medieval European mythology]: A very common theme throughout mythology and religion that connects stories about mythical creatures of many, if not all, civilizations: where magical monsters and supernatural beings exist, there are stories about people having sex with them. In some stories, this union between the natural and the unnatural results in a child. There are many medieval European stories about children with one human parent and one fey parent. These stories might have originated as a way to explain physical abnormalities or rare traits in infants, such as an unusual appetite or deformities. For example, Matthaeus Parisiensis (a 13th century English historian) describes a Welsh boy who supposedly was the offspring of a human parent and an Incuba, which is a supernatural creature. The boy had already grown a full set of teeth by the time he was 6 months old, and became weirdly tall when he was a teenager. Because of this, he was classified as a ‘Gigantulus’. Another story tells of a boy named Tydorel, whose fey parentage caused him to be unable to sleep. This all brings us to the Cambiones (singular: Cambion): the offspring of a human parent and a demon. These creatures resemble human infants but with a monstrous appearance. In addition, they weigh much more than a regular child. One often-cited story (cited by Morasch, 1725, among others) from Galicia (Spain) tells of a female beggar who struggled to cross a river with her child. A rider on horseback saw her and offered to carry her baby across the water, but the horse collapsed under its weight. She then admitted that the baby was not her child, but a Cambion devil which had promised her that as long as she carried it around, people would not refuse to give her alms and money. In modern pop culture, Cambiones are usually portrayed as classical devils: human-like creatures with horns, red skin and a tail. They also usually grow up like regular people rather than remaining in the form of an infant, and are often the result of a forbidden love between a mortal and some kind of fiend. But looking at older mentions of this creature, the nature of the Cambion actually differs a lot between stories and authors, and it is not always the child of a human and a demon: According to the account of William of Auvergne, dating from the 13th century, Cambiones are demonic illusions resembling babies who have been left in a human household to replace a kidnapped human infant. The word comes from ‘cambiti’, meaning ‘[those who] have been exchanged’. They are predominantly male, cry much more than a normal child, and possess a voracious appetite, to the point where 4 maids are unable to produce enough milk to satisfy a single Cambion. They remain with their human family for years before mysteriously disappearing. Nicolaus van Jauer, in his 1405 Tractatus de Superstitionibus, claims that Cambiones are in fact not magical illusions, but real living demons. In his version as well, these creatures had been left in human households by the devil. Still later, in the 1486 Malleus Maleficarum, Heinrich Kramer posits that there are three kinds of Cambiones: the first type is the offspring of a human man and a Succubus demon. The second kind is created by the devil from a bit of sem*n he collected from a sleeping human man. And then the third kind is not actually a child, but rather a mature demon who magically takes the form of a mortal infant. All three types of Cambiones distinguish themselves from normal babies by their enormous appetite, and the fact that they never grow, no matter how old they are. Finally, I want to mention Collin de Plancy’s Dictionnaire Infernal, which claims that a Cambion is actually the offspring of two demons: a male Incubus and a female Succubus. They retain most of the traits that the other versions had, though: they eat much more than normal infants and are much heavier. De Plancy recites a story about a Cambion which screamed whenever someone touched him, and laughed when something bad happened nearby. In this version, they only live for seven years. Sources:Green, R. F., 2016, Elf Queens and Holy Friars: Fairy Beliefs and the Medieval Church, University of Pennsylvania Press, 285 pp., P. 112-115.Goodey, C. F. and Stainton, T., 2001, Intellectual disability and the myth of the changeling myth, Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences, 37(3), p. 223-240.Morasch, J. A., 1725, Praelectiones academiae ex medicina practica de febribus et capitis morbis, habitae in Alma, Catholica Electorali Universitate Ingolstadiana, et Paucis abhinc annis consensus authoritate inclyti collegii medici per Partes Publicis disputationibus subjectae, nunc in unum digestae volumen, Graffiana, 806 pp., P. 497-498.De Plancy, C. and Albin, J. S., 1844, Dictionnaire Infernal, ou Recherches et Anecdotes sur les Démons, Third Edition, Paris, France, 605 pp., P. 111.(image source 1: YaxeMoon on Deviantart)(image source 2: Andrea Guardino on Artstation)
#Christian mythology#demons#monsters#humanoid creatures#mythology#mythical creatures
