From: "Everyman's Talmud" by Rev. Dr. A. Cohen

The principal female demon was Lilith, who was thought of as a creature with long hair. With regard to her it was said: 'It is forbidden for a man to sleep alone in a house; and whoever sleeps alone in a house will be seized by Lilith'. Little is told of her in the Talmud; but she figures prominently in later Jewish folk-lore as specially harmful to women in confinement and a child-snatcher ²

² The name Lilith used to be connected with laylah ('night') in the sense of night-spirit; but modern scholars prefer to associate it with Sumerian lulu ('wantonness'), and explain her as 'the demoness who inspires lust. See R.C. Thompson, Semitic Magic, p.66

"Everyman's Talmud."  Rev. Dr. A. Cohen.   E.P Dutton & Co, Inc.  New York.  ©1949