Part 22

Such was the object of demonology, as taught by its most orthodox 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.”