And Kobold vex him, drudging slave!
Here we have the four elemental spirits, of which Mr. Pope has discoursed so learnedly to Mrs. Anabella Fermor in his preface to “The Rape of the Lock.” With Silphs and Salamanders I may suppose the English reader sufficiently acquainted, as they have been almost naturalised on British ground; Undenes and Kobolds still remain more closely attached to their German soil. The former, sometimes called Wasser-Nixen, are a sort of Teutonic Nymphs or Sirens, familiar now to a large class of English readers, from Heine’s ballad of the Lurley, and Fouque’s beautiful extravaganza of Undine; the latter, seemingly from a Greek original, κόβαλος, well known to the readers of Aristophanes, are called gnomes by Pope, and appear as brownies in many a Scotch ballad. For special details of their character and proceedings the German work of Henning’s von Geistern may be consulted, p. 800, and Horst’s Zauber-Bibliothek, vol. iv. p. 250.
Bend thee this sacred
Emblem before,
Which the powers of darkness
Trembling adore.
“Jam experimento comprobatum est nullum malum dæmonem, nullum inferiorum virtutum, in his quæ vexant aut obsident homines, posse huic nomini resistere quando nomen Jesu debitâ pronunciatione illis proponitur venerandum; nec solum nomen, sed etiam illius signaculum Crucem pavent.”—Agrippa de Occult. Philos., lib. iii. c. 12.
The pentagram stands in your way.