“So That Vermin Will Not Suckle from It When It Is Asleep”: Milk-Sucking “Vermin” in Jewish Literature

From ancient times until the nineteenth century, a commonly held belief in various cultures was that some reptiles, small mammals, and even birds, adhere to sheep and cattle and suck milk from the females. In Jewish sources, this view is first mentioned in medieval commentaries on the Bible and Talmudic literature, where the practice is attributed to several animals: leeches, hedgehogs, snakes, bats, and vermin in general. Records of the milk-sucking theory in rabbinical writings show that it spread to European countries and throughout the East, for example, in northern France, Provence, Spain, Egypt, and Lithuania.