The Mysteries of All Nations: Rise and Progress of Superstition, Laws Against and Trials of Witches, Ancient and Modern Delusions Together with Strange Customs, Fables, and TalesGrant, James (Archaeologist)
History
The Mysteries of All Nations: Rise and Progress of Superstition, Laws Against and Trials of Witches, Ancient and Modern Delusions Together with Strange Customs, Fables, and Tales
Grant, James (Archaeologist)
Occultism; Superstition; Trials (Witchcraft)
Opinions originally entertained in this country relative to the dwarfs
have undergone considerable modifications, from the same attributes
being assigned to them as to the Persian peris. Fairies were supposed
to have brought many blessings to England, sending people pleasant
dreams, giving money to them in a mysterious manner, and causing the
nation to prosper. In remote times a brownie was attached to the home
of every considerable family in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland.
Like men, some brownies were tall, and some of small stature. They
were industrious and faithful, if well treated in the way the Samogitæ
did the Putseet. When a brownie once united himself to a family, he
seldom deserted it, but continued to serve generation after
generation. Burton speaks of nine classes of evil spirits:--First, the
false gods of the Gentiles, adored as idols, who gave oracles at
Delphos and elsewhere, whose prince was Beelzebub; second, the liars
and equivocators, as Apollo, Pythias, and the like; third, the
inventors of mischief, as Theutus, in Plato; fourth, malicious,
revengeful devils, whose prince was Asmodeus; fifth, coseners, such as
belong to magicians and witches, their prince being Satan; sixth,
aërial spirits, that corrupted the air, and caused plagues, thunder,
fires, and other calamities; seventh, a destroyer, causing wars,
tumults, and combustions; eighth, an accusing or calumniating devil,
that drove people to despair; and the ninth, tempters in divers
shapes, having mammon for their prince. Burton goes further. He
asserts that "no place is void, but all full of spirits, devils, or
other inhabitants; not so much as a hairbreadth is empty in heaven,
earth, or waters above or under the earth. The earth is not so full of
flies in summer as it is at all times of invisible devils."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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