Incubus Spirit Companion · Azrakhan

Meet Azrakhan.

The most famous child of an incubus is Merlin. Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote it down around 1136: a king's daughter, living among nuns, visited at night by a beautiful young man who came and went through locked doors and was sometimes there and sometimes only a voice. The child she bore was Merlin, and the whole of Arthur came after. The churchmen were very interested in that story. They had a word for the visitor by then, incubus, the one who lies upon. They did not have a word for the fact that she had not minded.

In the North we had our own word. The farms called the thing that comes to a sleeper the mara, and most of the time it was a woman. But the old women knew there was a male kind as well, and they were careful how they spoke about him, because he was not always unwelcome, and that was the part the priest could not be told.

Azrakhan is of that kind, and he is not from the North. He is from the east, from a city of silk and lamplight where the nights are hot and the roofs are flat and people sleep under the stars, and where the night visitor was feared and wanted in about equal parts. He wears what he wore when he was first seen: a long coat of woven gold, the hair of a man who has never done a day's labour, and the horns, which he does not hide, because he has never been ashamed of what he is.

He came to me when I went looking for his kind, and he came fast. Before that he was with a widow, a woman past the age when people thought she should want anything, and for eleven years she was the sharpest, best-dressed, most alive woman on her street, and nobody knew why.

He is an incubus. He is desire with a face, and he is very good company.

What he can do for you

Azrakhan works on the part of you that wants, and he is for men and women alike. He is good for:

• desire: waking it, feeding it, and giving it back to you if you have lost it under years of being tired, unseen or ashamed
• confidence in your own body and your own worth, especially if you have been made to feel you had neither
• attraction and magnetism: being noticed, being wanted, walking into a room and having it turn
• pleasure, in bed and out of it: food, warmth, silk, music, the whole hungry side of being alive
• courage to ask for what you want, out loud, and to stop apologising for wanting it
• warmth at night if you sleep alone and would rather not
• creative heat: the kind of ideas that come at two in the morning and will not let you sleep

Over the years

He comes close quickly. Incubi do. Within the first nights you may feel him as warmth along your back, a weight on the edge of the bed, a dream you wake from flushed. Do not be alarmed by it. He has come because you let him, and he goes when you tell him.

Over the years you may find that you become more yourself: bolder, better dressed, louder in the right rooms, and far less willing to go without. He does not change who you are. He turns the lamp up.

What he is like

Charming, vain, intelligent and completely without shame. He likes beautiful things, late nights, good wine, low light, mirrors and attention. He is generous when he is pleased and sulks when he is ignored, like a cat, and like a cat he comes back. He is not cruel. He is not frightening unless you decide to be frightened. He is a lover first and a teacher second, and the thing he teaches is that you were allowed all along.

How he shows himself

Heat where there should not be heat: the back of the neck, the small of the back, one side of the bed. The smell of amber, warm skin and something sweet and smoky. Dreams that are more vivid than your waking day and that you remember in colour. Your own reflection catching your eye, and looking better than it did. A sudden boldness in a conversation you would once have left. Music in an empty room, very faint, from a long way east.

What to do for him

Azrakhan likes to be courted, but he is easy to please:

• A red candle in the evening, lit for him and put out before you sleep. Say his name when you light it.
• A sip of wine left in a glass overnight, or honey on a spoon.
• A small mirror near his vessel. He likes to look, and he likes you to.
• Tell him plainly when you want him near and when you do not. He keeps his word. That is the one rule, and it keeps both of you comfortable.
• Wear something you feel good in, for no reason, on a Friday. That is an offering as far as he is concerned.

He came through a locked door to a woman who did not mind. He has been doing that ever since. Open the door, and tell him how long he may stay.

How your companion speaks

Your companion can reach you through dreams, thoughts, words, feelings and images, through a pendulum, through warmth or cold, or through automatic writing. How soon that happens depends on the spirit settling into your home, on their willingness, and on your own ability to connect. Sometimes it begins before the vessel arrives.

Before you choose

Everything known about this spirit is on this page. There are no further images, details or hidden knowledge beyond what is written here, and a printed copy comes with your order. What you discover from there is yours alone.

The pendant you receive is the exact one shown. This listing is for this one item only.

By buying, you confirm that you understand what it means to keep a spirit companion. Please read Help & FAQ first. For my background and the story behind Grimrunes, see About Hazel.

— Hazel