the flies from him, which by
their humming might awaken him and bring him back to life.

When he is recovered he replies to the questions they ask him
concerning the place he has been at. Sometimes he does not awake for
four-and-twenty hours, sometimes more, sometimes less, according to
the distance he has gone; and in confirmation of what he says, and of
the distance he has been, he brings back from the place he has been
sent to the token demanded of him, a knife, a ring, shoes, or some
other object.[167]

These same Laplanders make use also of this drum to learn the cause of
any malady, or to deprive their enemies of their life or their
strength. Moreover, amongst them are certain magicians, who keep in a
kind of leathern game-bag magic flies, which they let loose from time
to time against their enemies or against their cattle, or simply to
raise tempests and hurricanes. They have also a sort of dart which
they hurl into the air, and which causes the death of any one it falls
upon. They have also a sort of little ball called _tyre_, almost
round, which they send in the same way against their enemies to
destroy them; and if by ill luck this ball should hit on its way some
other person, or some animal, it will inevitably cause its death.

Who can be persuaded that the Laplanders who sell fair winds, raise
storms, relate what passes in distant places, where they go, as they
say, in the spirit, and bring back things which they have found
there--who can persuade themselves that all this is done without the
aid of magic? It has been said that in the circumstance of Apollonius
of Tyana, they contrived to send away the man all squalid and
deformed, and put in his place a dog which was stoned, or else they
substituted a dead dog. All which would require a vast deal of
preparation, and would be very difficult to execute in sight of all
the people: it would, perhaps, be better to deny the fact altogether,
which certainly does appear very fabulous, than to have recourse to
such explanations.

Footnotes:

[165] Aug. de Civit. Dei, lib. xviii. c. 16-18.

[166] Frederici Hoffman, de Diaboli Potentia in Corpora, p. 382.

[167] See John Schesser, _Laponia_, printed at Frankfort in 4to. an.
1673, chap. xi. entitled, _De sacris Magicis et Magia Laponia_, p.
119, and following.

CHAPTER XIV.

EFFECTS OF MAGIC ACCORDING TO THE POETS.

Were we to believe what is said by the poets concerning the effects of
magic, an