Omens of calamity, too, appear often, although it is not always clear whether sent from God or the devil. A few years ago the wolves in the forest near the monastery of St. Aliquis howled steadily all through the day of the feast of St. Honore. "A clear sign of trouble," announced the prior; and four days later the feud began betwixt Conon and Foretvert, which convulsed the whole countryside. Many a man is warned to prepare for death by seeing a will-o-the-wisp in the marshes, a shooting star, or a vulture hovering above his house. If thirteen people chance to sit at one table, or if one chances to dream of a physician, it is proof positive some one in the house is about to die. The same is true if a man inadvertently puts on a clean white shirt on Friday; while if the left eye of a dead man will not close promptly the deceased will soon have company in purgatory. Any woman, also, who thoughtlessly washes her clothes in lye during the holy week is not long for this world. It is needless to explain how sinister are eclipses and comets. In July, 1198, there was a great comet visible. Sage people wagged their heads with melancholy satisfaction when Richard the Lion Hearted died very soon after. Time will fail to list all the strange beings, neither human, angel, nor exactly devil, that Providence permits to infest the world. These creatures possess no souls, and when they perish are gone like cattle, although they live long and are very hard to kill. Probably they are more numerous in wild and solitary places, yet towns and crowded castles are not free from them. Thus there are _fées_ (fairies) good and bad--creatures relatively like human beings; undines in the waters, who by their perfidious beauty lure unwary knights to destruction; ogres who lie in wait to devour small children; ghouls who disinter the dead and gnaw their bones; vampires who rise every night from the tombs and suck the blood; wolf-men (humans turned into beasts) who attack lonely travelers; dracs, who carry off little children to their subterranean realms; will-of-the-wisps in the marshes, who are the souls of unbaptized dead infants; also many rather friendly spirits such as the _soleves_, who sometimes overnight do a weary laborer's work for him. It needs much knowledge to tell the good spirits from the bad--to know, _e.g._, whether you are dealing with a goblin who will only display harmless antics, or an _estrie_, a real imp of darkness, who may hug you like a bear, to suffocation.