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Golem: Stories
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[I]nspired in part by the story of the Golem of Prague, Ted Chiang wrote a short story, Seventy-Two Letters, which explores the role of language in the creation of golems. The story won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 2000. It can be found in the collection Stories of Your Life and Others.
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One story about the early days of this Golem was probably inspired by "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." The Golem was told to fetch water, but was not told how much. The result was a minor flood. This tendency to do what he was told to do, not what he was expected to do, has endeared the golem story to computer people like Norbert Wiener. It may ... be part of the basis of Asimov's robot stories.
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The Maharal created his Golem, named "Yossele," to help save the Jews of Prague from the blood libel. (For those of you who do not know, the blood libel was the belief that Jews used the blood of a Christian child during the Passover Seder. This malicious libel was frequently invoked to explain the disappearance of a child, and it was not uncommon for a dead or murdered Christian child to be planted in a Jewish house, often by a priest who would then "discover" this child and lead the masses on a murderous rampage through the ghetto, during which much Jewish property could be confiscated for the church.) Many stories are told about "The Golem of Prague."
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In Stranger than Fiction, Dustin Hoffman questions Will Ferrell about which story he could be a part of, and says that Ferrell's character is not a Golem. Ferrell replies "Yes, I am relieved to know I am not a golem."
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A popular variation on the story has the Golem rebel and become an uncontrolled monster before being stopped and returned to clay. It has been speculated that Mary Shelley patterned Frankenstein on this story.
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