Philistines, Bel amongst the Babylonians, Astartes amongst the Sidonians,
Baal amongst the Samaritans, Isis and Osiris amongst the Egyptians, &c.;
some put our [1194]fairies into this rank, which have been in former times
adored with much superstition, with sweeping their houses, and setting of a
pail of clean water, good victuals, and the like, and then they should not
be pinched, but find money in their shoes, and be fortunate in their
enterprises. These are they that dance on heaths and greens, as [1195]
Lavater thinks with Tritemius, and as [1196]Olaus Magnus adds, leave that
green circle, which we commonly find in plain fields, which others hold to
proceed from a meteor falling, or some accidental rankness of the ground,
so nature sports herself; they are sometimes seen by old women and
children. Hierom. Pauli, in his description of the city of Bercino in
Spain, relates how they have been familiarly seen near that town, about
fountains and hills; _Nonnunquam_ (saith Tritemius) _in sua latibula
montium simpliciores homines ducant, stupenda mirantibus ostentes miracula,
nolarum sonitus, spectacula_, &c. [1197]Giraldus Cambrensis gives instance
in a monk of Wales that was so deluded. [1198]Paracelsus reckons up many
places in Germany, where they do usually walk in little coats, some two
feet long. A bigger kind there is of them called with us hobgoblins, and
Robin Goodfellows, that would in those superstitious times grind corn for a
mess of milk, cut wood, or do any manner of drudgery work. They would mend
old irons in those Aeolian isles of Lipari, in former ages, and have been
often seen and heard. [1199]Tholosanus calls them _trullos_ and Getulos,
and saith, that in his days they were common in many places of France.
Dithmarus Bleskenius, in his description of Iceland, reports for a
certainty, that almost in every family they have yet some such familiar
spirits; and Felix Malleolus, in his book _de crudel. daemon._ affirms as
much, that these trolli or telchines are very common in Norway, "and [1200]
seen to do drudgery work;" to draw water, saith Wierus, _lib. 1. cap. 22_,
dress meat, or any such thing. Another sort of these there are, which