" ... Our mothers maide," he says, of his childhood, "so terrified us with ... bull beggers, spirits, witches, urchens, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, pans, faunes, sylens, kit with the cansticke, tritons, centaurs, dwarfes, giants, imps, calcars, conjurors, nymphes, changlings, Incubus, Robin goodfellowe, the spoorne, the mare, the man in the oke, the hellwaine, the fierdrake, the puckle, Tom thombe, hob gobblin, Tom tumbler, boneles, and such other bugs, that we were afraid of our own shadowes: in so much as some never feare the divill, but in a dark night; ..."
There seems to be no mention here of the salamander—a creature at least as rarely seen by mortal eyes as the puckle or firedrake.
"When I was about five years old," says Benvenuto Cellini, "my father happened to be in a basement-chamber of our house, where they had been washing, and where a good fire of oak logs was still burning; he had a viol in his hand and was playing and singing alone beside the fire. The weather was very cold. Happening to look into the fire, he espied in the middle of the most burning flames a little creature like a lizard, which was sporting in the core of the intensest coals. Becoming aware of what the thing was, he had my sister and me called, and pointing it out to us children, gave me a great box on the ears, which caused me to cry with all my might. Then he pacified me by saying, 'My dear little boy, I am not striking you for anything that you have done, but only to make you remember that the lizard you see in the fire is a salamander, a creature which has never been seen before by any of whom we have credible information.' So saying he gave me some pieces of money, and kissed me."
"Bell and Whip and Horse's Tail" (stanza 22)
—such in old days was the Witch's vile punishment if she escaped drowning: to be whipped, tied to a horse's tail, and rung through the crowded streets.
"Agramie," I suppose, is agrimony, which, if worn by the wary, will enable the wearer to detect witches. Their eyes too will betray them, for there you will find no tiny image of yourself reflected as in the eyes of the honest. And if you would be rid of their company, pluck a sprig of scarlet pimpernel, and repeat this charm:
Herbe pimpernell, I have thee found
Growing upon Christ Jesus' ground:
The same guift the Lord Jesus gave unto thee,
When he shed his blood on the tree,