The Phantom World; or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c.Calmet, Augustin
Religion
The Phantom World; or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c.
Calmet, Augustin
Apparitions; Demonology; Spirits
One day, when a bed in the garden had been dug and prepared, the spade
was found thrust two feet deep into the ground, without any trace
being seen of him who had thus stuck it in; but they observed that on
the spade was a riband, and by the spade were two pieces of two soles,
which the girl had locked up the evening before in a little box.
Sometimes he took pleasure in displacing the earthenware and pewter,
and putting it either all round the kitchen, or in the porch, or even
in the cemetery, and always in broad daylight. One day he filled an
iron pot with wild herbs, bran, and leaves of trees, and, having put
some water in it, carried it to the ally or walk in the garden;
another time he suspended it to the pot-hook over the fire. The
servant having broken two eggs into a little dish for the cure's
supper, the genius broke two more into it in his presence, the maid
having merely turned to get some salt. The cure having gone to say
mass, on his return found all his earthenware, furniture, linen,
bread, milk, and other things scattered about over the house.
Sometimes the spirit would form circles on the paved floor, at one
time with stones, at another with corn or leaves, and in a moment,
before the eyes of all present, all was overturned and deranged. Tired
with these games, the cure sent for the mayor of the place, and told
him he was resolved to quit the parsonage house. Whilst this was
passing, the cure's niece came in, and told them that the genius had
torn up the cabbages in the garden, and had put some money in a hole
in the ground. They went there, and found things exactly as she had
said. They picked up the money, which what the cure had put away in a
place not locked up; and in a moment after they found it anew, with
some liards, two by two, scattered about the kitchen.
The agents of the Count de Linange being arrived at Walsche, went to
the cure's house, and persuaded him that it was all the effect of a
spell; they told him to take two pistols, and fire them off at the
place where he might observe there were any movements. The genius at
the same moment threw out of the pocket of one of these officers two
pieces of silver; and from that time he was no longer perceived in the
house.
The circumstances of two pistols terminating the scenes with which the
elf had disturbed the good cure, made him believe that this tormenting
imp was no other than a certain bad parishioner, whom the cure had
been obliged to send away from his parish, and who to revenge himself
had done all that we have related. If that be the case, he had
rendered himself invisible, or he had had credit enough to send in his
stead a familiar genius who puzzled the cure for some weeks; for, if
he were not bodily in this house, what had he to fear from any pistol
shot which might have been fired at him? And if he was there bodily,
how could he render himself invisible?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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