Because many a pilgrim perished through a confidence in the
lake-pictures of the mirage which led to carelessness about economising
his skin of water, the mirage gained its present name--Bahr Sheitan,
or Devil's Water. The 'Will o' wisp,' which appeared to promise the
night-wanderer warmth or guidance, but led him into a bog, had its
excellent directions as to the place to avoid perverted by an unhappy
misunderstanding into a wilful falsehood, and has been branded ignis
fatuus. Most of the mimicries in nature gradually became as suspicious
to the primitive observer as aliases to a magistrate. The thing
that seemed to be fire, or water, but was not; the insect or animal
which took its hue or form from some other, from the leaf-spotted
or stem-striped cats to that innocent insect whose vegetal disguise
has gained for it the familiar name of 'Devil's Walking-stick;'
the humanlike hiss, laugh, or cry of animals; the vibratory sound or
movement which so often is felt as if near when it really is far; the
sand which seems hard but sinks; the sward which proves a bog;--all
these have their representation in the demonology of delusion. The
Coroados of Brazil says that the Evil One 'sometimes transforms
(himself) into a swamp, &c., leads him astray, vexes him, brings him
into danger, and even kills him.' [153] It is like an echo of Burton's
account. 'Terrestrial devils are those lares, genii, faunes, satyrs,
wood-nymphs, foliots, fairies, Robin Good-fellows, trulli, &c., which,
as they are most conversant with men, so they do them most harm. These
are they that dance on heaths and greens, as Lavater thinks with
Trithemius, and, as Olaus Magnus adds, leave that green circle which
we commonly find in plain fields. They are sometimes seen by old women
and children. Hieron. Pauli, in his description of the city of Bercino,
Spain, relates how they have been familiarly seen near that town, about
fountains and hills. 'Sometimes,' saith Trithemius, 'they lead simple
people into the recesses of mountains and show them wonderful sights,'
&c. Giraldus Cambrensis gives an instance of a monk of Wales that was
so deluded. Paracelsus reckons up many places in Germany where they
do usually walk about in little coats, some two feet long. [154] Real
dangers beset the woods and mountain passes, the swamp and quicksand;
in such forms did they haunt the untamed jungles of imagination!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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