Necromancers take upon them to raise and lay them at their pleasures:
and so likewise, those which Mizaldus calls ambulones, that walk about
midnight on great heaths and desert places, which (saith [1213]Lavater)
draw men out of the way, and lead them all night a byway, or quite bar
them of their way; these have several names in several places; we
commonly call them Pucks. In the deserts of Lop, in Asia, such
illusions of walking spirits are often perceived, as you may read in M.
Paulus the Venetian his travels; if one lose his company by chance,
these devils will call him by his name, and counterfeit voices of his
companions to seduce him. Hieronym. Pauli, in his book of the hills of
Spain, relates of a great [1214]mount in Cantabria, where such
spectrums are to be seen; Lavater and Cicogna have variety of examples
of spirits and walking devils in this kind. Sometimes they sit by the
highway side, to give men falls, and make their horses stumble and
start as they ride (if you will believe the relation of that holy man
Ketellus in [1215]Nubrigensis), that had an especial grace to see
devils, Gratiam divinitus collatam, and talk with them, Et impavidus
cum spiritibus sermonem miscere, without offence, and if a man curse or
spur his horse for stumbling, they do heartily rejoice at it; with many
such pretty feats.
Subterranean devils are as common as the rest, and do as much harm.
Olaus Magnus, lib. 6, cap. 19, make six kinds of them; some bigger,
some less. These (saith [1216]Munster) are commonly seen about mines of
metals, and are some of them noxious; some again do no harm. The
metal-men in many places account it good luck, a sign of treasure and
rich ore when they see them. Georgius Agricola, in his book de
subterraneis animantibus, cap. 37, reckons two more notable kinds of
them, which he calls [1217]getuli and cobali, both are clothed after
the manner of metal-men, and will many times imitate their works. Their
office, as Pictorius and Paracelsus think, is to keep treasure in the
earth, that it be not all at once revealed; and besides, [1218]Cicogna
avers that they are the frequent causes of those horrible earthquakes
which often swallow up, not only houses, but whole islands and cities;
in his third book, cap. 11, he gives many instances.
The last are conversant about the centre of the earth to torture the
souls of damned men to the day of judgment; their egress and regress
some suppose to be about Etna, Lipari, Mons Hecla in Iceland, Vesuvius,
Terra del Fuego, &c., because many shrieks and fearful cries are
continually heard thereabouts, and familiar apparitions of dead men,
ghosts and goblins.
_Their Offices, Operations, Study_.] Thus the devil reigns, and in a
thousand several shapes, as a roaring lion still seeks whom he may
devour, 1 Pet. v., by sea, land, air, as yet unconfined, though [1219]
some will have his proper place the air; all that space between us and
the moon for them that transgressed least, and hell for the wickedest
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