So Eusebius informs us in chapter 48 of his book Against the Philosophers, on Xenophanes’ authority; or they are little clouds, “flying with some movement I cannot explain.” They never appear, says Cardano, without signifying that some harm or other is coming to people; though others hold that they portend good, and victory for the side towards which they move in sea battles.

They are commonly called Saint Elmo’s fires and usually appear after a storm at sea. The Polish duke Radziwiłł calls this apparition “Saint Germanus’ star,” and adds that he afterwards saw the same thing in a storm while sailing from Alexandria to Rhodes in 1582.

Our histories are full of such apparitions of every kind. Some think these spirits have their homes in Hekla, a mountain in Iceland, in Etna in Sicily, Lipari, Vesuvius and so on. These devils were formerly worshipped through that superstitious practice of divination by fire, and the like.

Spirits or devils of the air are those that lodge chiefly in the air. They cause many tempests, thunder and lightning, split oaks, set steeples and houses on fire, strike people and animals, and make it rain stones—as in Livy’s time—wool, frogs, and so on.

They produce phantom armies in the air, strange noises, swords, and the like—as at Vienna before the Turks came, and often at Rome. Scheretzius, On Apparitions, part 1, chapter 1; Lavater, On Apparitions, part 1, chapter 17; Julius Obsequens, an ancient Roman, in his Book of Prodigies, under the year 505 from Rome’s foundation; and Machiavelli supply many examples. So does Josephus in The Jewish War, describing the time before Jerusalem’s destruction.

Guillaume Postel uses all this in On the Harmony of the World, book 1, chapter 7, as an effective argument—as indeed it is—to convince those who refuse to believe that spirits or devils exist. These beings cause sudden whirlwinds and violent storms. Though our writers on atmospheric phenomena generally attribute these to natural causes, I agree with Bodin, Theatre of Nature, book 2, that they are more often caused by these devils of the air in their respective regions.

For “they thrust themselves into storms,” says Richard Argentine—for instance, when a desperate person takes his own life, as people often do by hanging or drowning. Then, as Kornmann observes in Wonders of the Dead, part 7, chapter 76, the devils “dance in triumph,” dancing and rejoicing at a sinner’s death.

They can corrupt the air and cause plagues, sickness, storms, shipwrecks, fires and floods. Jovianus Pontanus records a most memorable example at Mons Draconis in Italy. And nothing is more common—if we may believe the accounts of Saxo Grammaticus, Olaus Magnus and Damião de Góis—than for witches and sorcerers in Lapland, Lithuania and throughout Scandinavia to sell winds to mariners and raise storms. Marco Polo the Venetian tells the same story of the Tartars.

This kind of devil takes great delight in sacrifices, says Porphyry. They held the whole world in awe and had different names, idols and sacrifices in Rome, Greece and Egypt. They still tyrannize over and deceive those pagans and Indians, who adore and worship them as gods.

For the gods of the pagans were devils—as Trismegistus admits in his Asclepius—and he himself could summon them into their images with magic spells. “And now,” says Pictorius, “they are just as highly honoured by our papists under the name of saints.”

These are the beings that Cardan believes so greatly desire sexual intercourse with witches—the incubi and succubi—that transform bodies, feel so very cold to the touch, and serve magicians. His father had one of them, a devil of the air, bound to him for twenty-eight years, as Cardan is not ashamed to relate.

Just as Agrippa’s dog had a devil tied to its collar, some believe that Paracelsus had one shut inside the pommel of his sword—unless Erastus is slandering him. Others wear them in rings, and so on.

Long ago Jannes and Jambres accomplished much with their help; so did Simon Magus, Cinops, Apollonius of Tyana and Iamblichus. More recently, Trithemius showed Emperor Maximilian his wife after her death, “even the wart on her neck,” says Godelmann. Delrio, book 2, gives various examples of their feats, as do Cicogna, book 3, chapter 3; Weyer in On the Deceptions of Demons; and Boissard in On Magicians and Poisoners.

Water devils are those Naiads or water nymphs that in former times frequented waters and rivers. Water, Paracelsus thinks, is their Chaos—the realm in which they live. Some call them fairies and say that Habundia is their queen.

They cause floods and often shipwrecks, and deceive men in various ways, as succubi or otherwise, appearing chiefly in women’s shapes, says Trithemius. Paracelsus has several stories of them living with mortal men as their wives for a number of years, then abandoning them after some displeasure.

Such beings were Egeria, with whom Numa was so intimate, Diana, Ceres, and others. Olaus Magnus gives a long account of a certain Hotherus, a king of Sweden, who lost his companions while hunting one day, met these water nymphs or fairies, and was entertained at a feast by them.

And Hector Boece tells of Macbeth and Banquo, two Scottish lords, who had their fortunes told by three strange women as they wandered in the woods. People formerly used to sacrifice to these beings in the practice of hydromancy, or divination by water.

Earthly devils are the Lares, genii, fauns, satyrs, wood nymphs, foliots, fairies, Robin Goodfellows, trulli, and so on. As they associate most closely with human beings, so they do them the most harm.

Some think that these alone held the heathen peoples in awe in ancient times, and had so many idols and temples erected in their honour. To this class belonged Dagon among the Philistines, Bel among the Babylonians, Astarte among the Sidonians, Baal among the Samaritans, and Isis and Osiris among the Egyptians, and others.

Some put our fairies in this class. In former times people worshipped them with great superstition, sweeping their houses and setting out a pail of clean water, good food, and the like. Then, they believed, they would escape being pinched, find money in their shoes, and enjoy good fortune in their undertakings.