But who shall give us the knowledge necessary for such discerning, so difficult and yet so requisite, since we have not even any certain and demonstrative marks by which to discern infallibly between true and false miracles, or to distinguish the works of the Almighty from the illusions of the angel of darkness. Footnotes: [474] "Neu pransae lamiae vivum puerum ex trahat alvo." _Horat. Art. Poet._ 340. [475] "Carpere dicuntur lactentia viscera rostris, Et plenum poco sanguine guttur habent, Est illis strigibus nomen." [476] Capitul. Caroli Magni pro partibus Saxoniae, i. 6:--"Si quis a Diabolo deceptus crediderit secundum morem Paganorum, virum aliquem aut foeminam strigem esse, et homines comedere; et propter hoc ipsum incenderit, vel carnem ejus ad comedendum dederit, vel ipsam comederit capitis sententia puniatur." [477] Le Loyer, des Spectres, lib. ii. p. 427. [478] Mich. Glycas, part iv. Annal. [479] Aug. Epist. 658, and Epist. 258, p. 361. CHAPTER XVII. OF GHOSTS IN THE NORTHERN COUNTRIES. Thomas Bartholin, the son, in his treatise entitled "_Of the Causes of the contempt of Death felt by the Ancient Danes while yet Gentiles_," remarks[480] that a certain Hordus, an Icelander, saw spectres with his bodily eyes, fought against them and resisted them. These thoroughly believed that the spirits of the dead came back with their bodies, which they afterwards forsook and returned to their graves. Bartholinus relates in particular that a man named Asmond, son of Alfus, having had himself buried alive in the same sepulchre with his friend Asvitus, and having had victuals brought there, was taken out from thence some time after covered with blood, in consequence of a combat he had been obliged to maintain against Asvitus, who had haunted him and cruelly assaulted him. He reports after that what the poets teach concerning the vocation of spirits by the power of magic, and of their return into bodies which are not decayed although a long time dead. He shows that the Jews have believed the same--that the souls came back from time to time to revisit their dead bodies during the first year after their decease. He demonstrates that the ancient northern nations were persuaded that persons recently deceased often made their bodily appearance; and he relates some examples of it: he adds that they attacked these dangerous spectres, which haunted and maltreated all who had any fields in the neighborhood of their tombs; that they cut off the head of a man named Gretter, who also returned to earth. At other times they thrust a stake through the body and thus fixed them to the ground. "Nam ferro secui mox caput ejus, Perfodique nocens stipite corpus." Formerly, they took the corpse from the tomb and reduced it to ashes; they did thus towards a spectre named Gardus, which they believed the author of all the fatal apparitions that had appeared during the winter. Footnotes: