professors. Yet other systems of it were devised, which had their origin
in causes attending the propagation of Christianity. For it must have
been a work of much time to eradicate the universal belief, that the
Pagan deities, who had become so numerous as to fill every part of the
universe, were fabulous beings. Even many learned men were induced to
side with the popular opinion on the subject, and did nothing more than
endeavour to reconcile it with their acknowledged systems of demonology.
They taught that such heathen objects of reverence were fallen angels in
league with the prince of darkness, who, until the appearance of our
Saviour, had been allowed to range on the earth uncontrolled, and to
involve the world in spiritual darkness and delusion. According to the
various ranks which these spirits held in the vast kingdom of Lucifer,
they were suffered, in their degraded state, to take up their abode in
the air, in mountains, in springs, or in seas. But, although the various
attributes ascribed to the Greek and Roman deities, were, by the early
teachers of Christianity, considered in the humble light of demoniacal
delusions, yet for many centuries they possessed great influence over
the minds of the vulgar. In the reign of Adrian, Evreux, in Normandy,
was not converted to the Christian faith, until the devil, who had
caused the obstinacy of the inhabitants, was finally expelled from the
temple of Diana. To this goddess, during the persecution of Dioclesian,
oblations were rendered by the inhabitants of London. In the 5th
century, the worship of her existed at Turin, and incurred the rebuke of
St. Maximus. From the ninth to the fifteenth century, several
denunciations took place of the women who, in France and Germany,
travelled over immense spaces of the earth, acknowledging Diana as their
mistress and conductor. In rebuilding St. Paul’s cathedral, in London,
remains of several of the animals used in her sacrifices were found; for
slight traces of this description of reverence, subsisted so late as the
reign of Edward the First, and of Mary. Apollo, also, in an early period
of Christianity, had some influence at Thorney, now Westminster. About
the 11th century, Venus formed the subject of a monstrous apparition,
which could only have been credited from the influence which she was
still supposed to possess. A young man had thoughtlessly put his ring
around the marble finger of her image. This was construed by the Cyprian
goddess as a plighted token of marriage; she accordingly paid a visit to
her bridegroom’s bed at night, nor could he get rid of his bed-fellow
until the spells of an exorcist had been invoked for his relief. In the
year 1536, just before the volcanic eruption of Mount Etna, a Spanish
merchant, while travelling in Sicily, saw the apparition of Vulcan
attended by twenty of his Cyclops, as they were escaping from the
effects which the over heating of his furnace foreboded[56].
To the superstitions of Greece and Rome, we are also indebted for those
subordinate evil spirits called _genii_, who for many centuries were the
subject of numerous spectral illusions. A phantasm of this kind appeared
to Brutus in his tent, prophesying that he should be again seen at
Philippi. Cornelius Sylla had the first intimation of the sudden febrile
attack with which he was seized, from an apparition who addressed him by
his name; concluding, therefore, that his death was at hand, he prepared
himself for the event, which took place the following evening. The poet
Cassius Severus, a short time before he was slain by order of Augustus,
saw, during the night, a human form of gigantic size,—his skin black,
his beard squalid, and his hair dishevelled. The phantasm was, perhaps,
not unlike the evil genius of Lord Byron’s Manfred:—
“I see a dusk and awful figure rise
Like an infernal god from out the earth;
His face wrapt in a mantle, and his form
Robed as with angry clouds; he stands between
Thyself and me—but I do fear him not.”
The emperor Julian was struck with a spectre clad in rags, yet bearing
in his hands a horn of plenty, which was covered with a linen cloth.
Thus emblematically attired, the spirit walked mournfully past the
hangings of the apostate’s tent[57].
We may now advert to the superstitious narratives of the middle ages,
which are replete with the notices of similar marvellous apparitions.
When Bruno, the Archbishop of Wirtzburg, a short period before his
sudden death, was sailing with Henry the Third, he descried a terrific
spectre standing upon a rock which overhung the foaming waters, by whom
he was hailed in the following words:—“Ho! Bishop, I am thy evil genius.
Go whether thou choosest, thou art and shalt be mine. I am not now sent
for thee, but soon thou shalt see me again.” To a spirit commissioned on
a similar errand, the prophetic voice may be probably referred, which
was said to have been heard by John Cameron, the Bishop of Glasgow,
immediately before his decease. He was summoned by it, says Spottiswood,
“to appear before the tribunal of Christ, there to atone for his
violence and oppressions.”
“I shall not pursue the subject of Genii much farther. The notion of
every man being attended by an evil genius, was abandoned much earlier
than the far more agreeable part of the same doctrine, which taught
that, as an antidote to this influence, each individual was also
accompanied by a benignant spirit. “The ministration of angels,” says a
writer in the Athenian oracle, “is certain, but the manner _how_, is the
knot to be untied.” ’Twas generally thought by the ancient philosophers,
that not only kingdoms had their tutelary guardians, but that every
person had his particular genius, or good angel, to protect and admonish
him by dreams, visions, &c. We read that Origin, Hierome, Plato, and
Empedocles, in Plutarch, were also of this opinion; and the Jews
themselves, as appears by that instance of Peter’s deliverance out of
prison. They believed it could not be Peter, but his angel. But for the
particular attendance of bad angels, we believe it not; and we must deny
it, till it finds better proof than conjecture.”
Such were the objects of superstitious reverence, derived from the
Pantheon of Greece and Rome, the whole synod of which was supposed to
consist of demons, who were still actively bestirring themselves to
delude mankind. But in the West of Europe, a host of other demons, far
more formidable, were brought into play, who had their origin in Celtic,
Teutonic, and even Eastern fables; and as their existence, as well as
influence, was not only by the early Christians, but even by the
reformers, boldly asserted, it was long before the rites to which they
had been accustomed were totally eradicated. Thus in Orkney, for
instance, it was customary, even during the last century, for lovers to
meet within the pale of a large circle of stones, which had been
dedicated to the chief of the ancient Scandinavian deities. Through a
hole in one of the pillars, the hands of contracting parties were
joined, and the faith they plighted, was named the promise of Odin, to
violate which was infamous. But the influence of the _Dii_ Majores of
the Edda was slight and transient, in comparison with that of the
duergar or dwarfs, who figure away in the same mythology, and whose
origin is thus recited. Odin and his brothers killed the giant Ymor,
from whose wound ran so much blood that all the families of the earth
were drowned, except one that saved himself on board a bark. These gods
then made, of the giant’s bones of his flesh and his blood, the earth,
the waters, and the heavens. But in the body of the monster, several
worms had in the course of putrefaction been engendered, which, by order
of the gods, partook of both human shape and reason. These little beings
possessed the most delicate figures, and always dwelt in subterraneous
caverns or clefts in the rocks. They were remarkable for their riches,
their activity, and their malevolence[58]. This is the origin of our
modern faries, who, at the present day, are described as a people of
small stature, gaily drest in habiliments of green[59]. They possess
material shapes, with the means, however, of making themselves
invisible. They multiply their species; they have a relish for the same
kind of food that affords sustenance to the human race, and when, for
some festal occasion, they would regale themselves with good beef or
mutton, they employ elf arrows to bring down their victims. At the same
time, they delude the shepherds with the substitution of some vile
substance, or illusory image, possessing the same form as that of the
animal they had taken away. These spirits are much addicted to music,
and when they make their excursions, a most exquisite band of music
never fails to accompany them in their course. They are addicted to the
abstraction of the human species, in whose place they leave substitutes
for living beings, named Changelings, the unearthly origin of whom is
known by their mortal imbecility, or some wasting disease. When a limb
is touched with paralysis, a suspicion often arises that it has been
touched by these spirits, or that, instead of the sound member, an
insensible mass of matter has been substituted in its place.
In England, the opinions originally entertained relative to the duergar
or dwarfs, have sustained considerable modifications, from the same
attributes being assigned to them as to the Persian _peris_, an
imaginary race of intelligences, whose offices of benevolence were
opposed to the spightful interference of evil spirits. Whence this
confusion in proper Teutonic mythology has originated, is doubtful;
conjectures have been advanced, that it may be traced to the intercourse
the Crusaders had with the Saracens; and that from Palestine was
imported the corrupted name, derived from the peris, of _faries_; for
under such a title the duegar of the Edda are now generally recognized;
the malevolent character of the dwarfs being thus sunk in the opposite
qualities of the peris, the fairies. Blessing became in England,
proverbial: “Grant that the sweet fairies may nightly put money in your
shoes, and sweep your house clean.” In more general terms, the wish
denoted, “Peace be to the house[60].
Fairies, for many centuries, have been the objects of spectral
impressions. In the case of a poor woman of Scotland, Alison Pearson,
who suffered for witchcraft in the year 1586, they probably resulted
from some plethoric state of the system, which was followed by
paralysis. Yet, for these illusive images, to which the popular
superstition of the times had given rise, the poor creature was indicted
for holding communication with demons, under which light fairies were
then considered, and burnt at a stake. During her illness, she was not
unfrequently impressed with sleeping and waking visions, in which she
held an intercourse with the queen of the Elfland and the _good
neighbours_. Occasionally, these capricious spirits would condescend to
afford her bodily relief; at other times, they would add to the severity
of her pains. In such trances or dreams, she would observe her cousin,
Mr. William Sympsoune, of Stirling, who had been conveyed away to the
hills by the fairies, from whom she received a salve that would cure
every disease, and of which the Archbishop of St. Andrews deigned
himself to reap the benefit. It is said in the indictment against her,
that “being in Grange Muir with some other folke, she, being sick, lay
downe; and, when alone, there came a man to her clad in green, who said
to her, if she would be faithful, he would do her good; but she being
feared, cried out; but nae bodie came to her, so she said, if he came in
God’s name, and for the gude of her soul, it was all well; but he gaed
away; he appeared another tyme like a lustie man, and many men and women
with him—at seeing him she signed herself, and pray and past with them,
and saw them making merrie with pypes, and gude cheir and wine;—she was
carried with them, and when she telled any of these things, she was
sairlie tormented by them, and the first time she gaid with them, she
gat a sair straike frae one of them, which took all the poustie (power)
of her side frae her, and left an ill-far’d mark on her side.
“She saw the gude neighbours make their saws (salves) with panns and
fyres, and they gathered the herbs before the sun was up, and they cam
verie fearful sometimes to her, and flaire (scared) her very sair, which
made her cry, and threatened they would use her worse than before; and
at last, they tuck away the power of her haile syde frae her, and made
her lye many weeks. Sometimes they would come and sit by her, and
promise that she should never want if she would be faithful, but if she
would speak and telle of them, they would murther her. Mr. William
Sympsoune is with them who healed her, and telt her all things;—he is a
young man, not six yeares older than herself, and he will appear to her
before the court comes;—he told her he was taken away by them; and he
bid her sign herself that she be not taken away, for the teind of them
are tane to hell every yeare[61].”
Another apparition of a similar kind may be found on the pamphlet which
was published A. D. 1696, under the patronage of Dr. Fowler, Bishop of
Glocester, relative to Ann Jefferies, “who was fed for six months by a
small sort of airy people, called fairies.” There is every reason to
suppose, that this female was either affected with hysteria, or with
that highly excited state of nervous irritability, which, as I have
shewn, gives rise to ecstatic illusions. The account of her first fit is
the only one which relates to the present subject. In the year 1695,
says her historian, “she then being nineteen years of age, and one day
knitting in an arbour in the garden, there came over the hedges to her
(as she affirmed) six persons of small stature, all clothed in green,
and which she called _fairies_: upon which she was so frightened, that
she fell into a kind of convulsive fit: but when we found her in this
condition, we brought her into the house, and put her to bed, and took
great care of her. As soon as she was recovered out of the fit, she
cries out, ‘they are just gone out of the window; they are just gone out
of the window. Do you not see them?’ And thus, in the height of her
sickness, she would often cry out, and that with eagerness; which
expressions we attributed to her distemper, supposing her light-headed.”
This narrative of the girl seemed highly interesting to her
superstitious neighbours, and she was induced to relate far more
wonderful stories, upon which not the least dependance can be placed, as
the sympathy she excited eventually induced her to become a rank
impostor[62].
But besides fairies, or elves, which formed the subject of many spectral
illusions, a domestic spirit deserves to be mentioned, who was once held
in no small degree of reverence. In most northern countries of Europe
there were few families that were without a shrewd and knavish sprite,
who, in return for the attention or neglect which he experienced, was
known to
——“sometimes labour in the quern,
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
And sometimes make the drink to bear no barm!”
Mr. Douce, in his Illustrations of Shakspeare, has shewn, that the
Samogitæ, a people formerly inhabiting the shores of the Baltic, who
remained idolatrous so late as the 15th century, had a deity named
Putseet, whom they invoked to live with them, by placing in the barn,
every night, a table covered with bread, butter, cheese, and ale. If
these were taken away, good fortune was to be expected; but if they were
left, nothing but bad luck. This spirit is the same as the goblin-groom,
Puck, or Robin Good-fellow of the English, whose face and hands were
either of a russet or green colour, who was attired in a suit of
leather, and armed with a flail. For a much lesser fee than was
originally given him, he would assist in threshing, churning, grinding
malt or mustard, and sweeping the house at midnight[63]. A similar tall
“lubbar fiend,” habited in a brown garb, was known in Scotland. Upon the
condition of a little wort being laid by for him, or the occasional
sprinkling, upon a sacrificial stone, of a small quantity of milk, he
would ensure the success of many domestic operations. According to Olaus
Magnus, the northern nations regarded domestic spirits of this
description, as the souls of men who had given themselves up during life
to illicit pleasures, and were doomed, as a punishment, to wander about
the earth, for a certain time, in the peculiar shape which they assumed,
and to be bound to mortals in a sort of servitude. It is natural,
therefore, to expect, that these familiar spirits would be the subjects
of many apparitions, of which a few relations are given in Martin’s
Account of the Second Sight in Scotland. “A spirit,” says this writer,
“called Browny, was frequently seen in all the most considerable
families in the isles and the north of Scotland, in the shape of a tall
man; but within these twenty or thirty years, he is seen but rarely.”
It is useless to pursue this subject much farther: in the course of a
few centuries, the realms of superstition were increased to almost an
immeasurable extent; the consequence was, that the air, the rocks, the
seas, the rivers, nay, every lake, pool, brook, or spring, were so
filled with spirits, both good and evil, that of each province it might
be said, in the words of the Roman satirist, “Nosiba regio tam plena est
numinibus, ut facilius possis deum quam hominem invenire.” Hence the
modification which took place of systems of demonology, so as to admit
of the classification of all descriptions of devils, whether Teutonic,
Celtic, or Eastern systems of mythology. “Our schoolmen and other
divines,” says Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy, “make nine kinds of
bad devils, as Dionysius hath of angels. In the _first rank_, are those
false gods of the Gentiles, which were adored heretofore in several
idols, and gave oracles at Delphos and elsewhere, whose prince is
Beelzebub. The _second rank_ is of liars and equivocators, as Apollo,
Pythias, and the like. The _third_ are those vessels of anger, inventors
of all mischief, as that of Theutus in Plato. Esay calls them vessels of
fury: their prince is Belial. The _fourth_ are malicious, revengeful
devils, and their prince is Asmodeus. The _fifth_ kind are coseners,
such as belong to magicians and witches; their prince is Satan. The
sixth are those aërial devils that corrupt the air, and cause plagues,
thunders, fires, &c. spoken of in Apocalypse and Paule; the Ephesians
name them the prince of the air: Meresin is their prince. The _seventh_
is a destroyer, captaine of the furies, causing wars, tumults,
combustions, uproares, mentioned in the Apocalypse, and called Abaddon.
The _eighth_ is that accusing or calumniating devil, whom the Greeks
call Διάβολος, that drives us to despair. The _ninth_ are those tempters
in several kindes, and their prince is Mammon.”
But this arrangement was not comprehensive enough; for, as Burton adds,
“no place was void, but all full of spirits, devils, or other
inhabitants; not so much as an haire-breadth was empty in heaven, earth,
or waters, above or under the earth; the earth was not so full of flies
in summer as it was at all times of invisible devils.” Pneumatologists,
therefore, made two grand distinctions of demons; there were celestial
demons, who inhabited the regions higher than the moon; while those of
an inferior rank, as the Manes or Lemures, were either nearer the earth,
or grovelled on the ground. Psellus, however, “a great observer of the
nature of devils,” seems to have thought, that such a classification
destroyed all distinction between good and evil spirits: he, therefore,
denied that the latter ever ascended the regions above the moon, and
contending for this principle, founded a system of demonology, which had
for its basis the natural history and habitations of all demons. He
named his first class _fiery devils_. They wandered in the region near
the moon, but were restrained from entering into that luminary; they
displayed their power in blazing stars, in fire-drakes, in counterfeit
suns and moons, and in the _euerpo santo_, or meteoric lights, which, in
vessels at sea, flit from mast to mast, and forebode foul weather. It
was supposed that these demons occasionally resided in the furnaces of
Hecla, Etna, or Vesuvius. The second class consisted of aërial devils.
They inhabited the atmosphere, causing tempests, thunder and lightning;
rending asunder oaks, firing steeples and houses, smiting men and
beasts, showering down from the skies, stones[64], wool, and even frogs;
counterfeiting in the clouds the battles of armies, raising whirlwinds,
fires, and corrupting the air, so as to induce plagues. The third class
was _terrestrial devils_, such as lares, genii, fawns, satyrs,
wood-nymphs, foliots, Robin good-fellows, or trulli. The fourth class
were _aqueous devils_; as the various description of water-nymph, or
mermen, or of merwomen. The fifth were _subterranean devils_, better
known by the name dæmones itallici, metal-men, _Getuli_ or Cobals. They
preserved treasure in the earth, and prevented it from being suddenly
revealed; they were also the cause of horrible earthquakes. Psellus’s
sixth class of devils were named lucifugi; they delighted in darkness;
they entered into the bowels of men, and tormented those whom they
possessed with phrenzy and the falling sickness. By this power they were
distinguished from earthly and aërial devils; they could only enter into
the human mind, which they either deceived or provoked with unlawful
affections.
Nor were speculations wanting with regard to the common nature of these
demons. Psellus conceived that their bodies did not consist merely of
one element, although he was far from denying that this might have been
the case before the fall of Lucifer. It was his opinion, that devils
possessed corporeal frames capable of sensation; that they could both
feel and be felt; they could injure and be hurt; that they lamented when
they were beaten, and that if struck into the fire, they even left
behind them ashes,—a fact which was demonstrated in a very satisfactory
experiment made by some philosophers upon the borders of Italy; that
they were nourished with food peculiar to themselves, not receiving the
aliment through the gullet, but absorbing it from the exterior surface
of their bodies, after the manner of a sponge; that they did not hurt
cattle from malevolence, but from mere love of the natural and temperate
heat and moisture of these animals; that they disliked the heat of the
sun, because it dried too fast; and, lastly, that they attained a great
age. Thus, Cardan had a fiend bound to him twenty-eight years, who was
forty-two years old, and yet considered very young. He was informed,
from this very authentic source of intelligence, that devils lived from
two to three hundred years, and that their souls died with their bodies.
The very philosophical statement was, nevertheless, combated by other
observers. “Manie,” says Scot, “affirmed that spirits were of aier,
because they had been cut in sunder and closed presentlie againe, and
also because they vanished away so suddenlie.”
“_The_ NARRATIVE _of the_ DEMON OF TEDWORTH, _or the disturbances at_
MR. MONPESSON’S _house, caused by_ WITCHCRAFT _and_ VILLAINY OF THE
DRUMMER.”
“In winter’s tedious nights, sit by the fire
With good old folks; and let them tell the tales
Of woeful ages long ago betid.”