OF FAMILIAR SPIRITS.
If all that is related of spirits which are perceived in houses, in the cavities of mountains, and in mines, is certain, we cannot disavow that they also must be placed in the rank of apparitions of the evil spirit; for, although they usually do neither wrong nor violence to any one, unless they are irritated or receive abusive words; nevertheless we do not read that they lead to the love or fear of God, to prayer, piety, or acts of devotion; it is known, on the contrary, that they show a distaste to those things, so that we shall place them in earnest among the spirits of darkness.
I do not find that the ancient Hebrews knew anything of what we call esprits follets, or familiar spirits, which infest houses, or attach themselves to certain persons, to serve them, watch over and warn them, and guard them from danger; such as the demon of Socrates, who warned him to avoid certain misfortunes. Some other examples are also related of persons who said they had similar genii attached to their persons.
The Jews and Christians confess that every one of us has his good angel, who guides him from his early youth.[[269]] Several of the ancients have thought that we have also our evil angel, who leads us into error. The Psalmist[[270]] says distinctly that God has commanded his angels to guide us in all our ways. But this is not what we understand here under the name of esprits follets.
The prophets in some places speak of fauns, or hairy men, or satyrs, who have some resemblance to our elves.
Isaiah,[[271]] speaking of the state to which Babylon shall be reduced after her destruction, says that the ostriches shall make it their dwelling, and that the hairy men, pilosi, the satyrs, and goats, shall dance there. And elsewhere the same prophet says,[[272]] Occurrent dæmonia onocentauris et pilosus clamabit alter ad alterum, by which clever interpreters understand spectres which appear in the shape of goats. Jeremiah calls them fauns—the dragons with the fauns, which feed upon figs. But this is not the place for us to go more fully into the signification of the terms of the original; it suffices for us to show that in the Scripture, at least in the Vulgate, are found the names of lamiæ, fauns, and satyrs, which have some resemblance to esprits follets.
Cassian,[[273]] who had studied deeply the lives of the fathers of the desert, and who had been much with the hermits or anchorites of Egypt, speaking of divers sorts of demons, mentions some which they commonly called fauns or satyrs, which the pagans regard as kinds of divinities of the fields or groves, who delighted, not so much in tormenting or doing harm to mankind, as in deceiving and fatiguing them, diverting themselves at their expense, and sporting with their simplicity.[[274]]
Pliny[[275]] the younger had a freed-man named Marcus, a man of letters, who slept in the same bed with his brother, who was younger than himself. It seemed to him that he saw a person sitting on the same bed, who was cutting off his hair from the crown of his head. When he awoke, he found his head shorn of hair, and his hair thrown on the ground in the middle of the chamber. A little time after, the same thing happened to a youth who slept with several others at a school. This one saw two men dressed in white come in at the window, who cut off his hair as he slept, and then went out by the same window: on awaking, he found his hair scattered about on the floor. To what can these things be attributed, if not to an elf?
Plotinus,[[276]] a Platonic philosopher, had, it is said, a familiar demon, who obeyed him from the moment he called him, and was superior in his nature to the common genii; he was of the order of gods, and Plotinus paid continual attention to this divine guardian. This it was which led him to undertake a work on the demon which belongs to each of us in particular. He endeavors to explain the difference between the genii which watch over men.
Trithemius, in his Chronicon Hirsauginse,[[277]] under the year 1130, relates that in the diocese of Hildesheim, in Saxony, they saw for some time a spirit which they called in German heidekind, as if they would say rural genius, heide signifying vast country, kind, child (or boy). He appeared sometimes in one form, sometimes in another; and sometimes, without appearing at all, he did several things by which he proved both his presence and his power. He chose sometimes to give very important advice to those in power; and often he has been seen in the bishop's kitchen, helping the cooks and doing sundry jobs.