Talk:Cain

tcm: There's also this, which I found more than a little interesting, but it might fall under the heading of "shenanigans" because I'm not sure if our characters have access to this text (hence why it is only in the talk section):

           So times were pleasant for the people there
    100  until finally one, a fiend out of hell,
         began to work his evil in the world.
         Grendel was the name of this grim demon
         haunting the marches, marauding round the heath
         and the desolate fens; he had dwelt for a time
    105  in misery among the banished monsters,
         Cain's clan, whom the Creator had outlawed
         and condemned as outcasts. For the killing of Abel
         the Eternal Lord had exacted a price:
         Cain got no good from commiting that murder
    110  because the Almighty made him anathema
         and out of the curse of his exile there sprang
         ogres and elves and evil phantoms
         and the giants too who strove with God
         time and again until He gave them their reward.
         
         ...
         
                           Grendel's mother,
         monstrous hell-bride, brooded on her wrongs.
    1260 She had been forced down into fearful waters,
         the cold depths, after Cain had killed
         his father's son, felled his own
         brother with a sword. Branded an outlaw,
         marked by having murdered, he moved into the wilds,
    1265 shunned company and joy. And from Cain there sprang
         misbegotten spirits, among them Grendel,
         the banished and accursed,...

The text of Beowulf says in no uncertain terms that the Grendel was a descendant of Cain, and that he is but one of many, making Cain a sort of Judeo-Christian Echidna. It also says that elves and giants are descendants of Cain, something I've never heard of before. And finally, Grendel's mother, who's been around since the time "Cain had killed his father's son," was "forced down into the fearful waters, the cold depths" after Cain killed Abel. Is there a casual relationship there, or is the timing merely coincedence? And if she was forced into the waters, that makes her one of them. Does that make Cain one of them too (cause that would be bad)?

And just to make things more interesting, the "Zohar" says:

    Furthermore, we read that Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth
    (Gen, v., 3), denoting that the first children of Adam had no resemblance to him either physically or
    morally. This was the opinion of Rabbi Yeba the aged as given by Rabbi Simeon. The first children brought
    forth by Eve were begotten by Somoal who appeared to her riding on the back of a serpent, and were
    therefore not endowed with the human body.

The Internets seem devoid of information on this "Somoal" character, but if he's riding on the back of a serpent, he might be Satan. The important bit here is that maybe Cain is not Adam's son after all, but this is just a bunch of crazy Jews talking, so who knows? I can't seem to find any of the Jewish texts online that are searchable like the Bible at biblegateway.com or the Qu'ran on many different sites. I've looked at versions of the Midrash, the Talmud, the Zohar, and the Kabbalah on sacred-texts.com, but without a search function, I'm just searching for a needle in a haystack in the dark while grabbing my ankles during the whole process.