or
thought nothing about it; but the spirit avenged himself cruelly. This
youth having fallen asleep in the kitchen, the spirit stifled him,
tore him to pieces, and roasted him. He carried his fury still further
against the officers of the kitchen, and the other officers of the
prince. The thing went on to such a point that they were obliged to
proceed against him by (ecclesiastical) censures, and to constrain him
by exorcisms to go out of the country.

I think I may put amongst the number of elves the spirits which are
seen, they say, in mines and mountain caves. They appear clad like the
miners, run here and there, appear in haste as if to work and seek the
veins of mineral ore, lay it in heaps, draw it out, turning the wheel
of the crane; they seem to be very busy helping the workmen, and at
the same time they do nothing at all.

These spirits are not mischievous, unless they are insulted and
laughed at; for then they fall into an ill humor, and throw things at
those who offend them. One of these genii, who had been addressed in
injurious terms by a miner, twisted his neck and placed his head the
hind part before. The miner did not die, but remained all his life
with his neck twisted and awry.

George Agricola,[278] who has treated very learnedly on mines, metals,
and the manner of extracting them from the bowels of the earth,
mentions two or three sorts of spirits which appear in mines. Some are
very small, and resemble dwarfs or pygmies; the others are like old
men dressed like miners, having their shirts tucked up, and a leathern
apron round their loins; others perform, or seem to perform, what they
see others do, are very gay, do no harm to any one, but from all their
labors nothing real results.

In other mines are seen dangerous spirits, who ill-use the workmen,
hunt them away, and sometimes kill them, and thus constrain them to
forsake mines which are very rich and abundant. For instance, at
Anneberg, in a mine called Crown of Rose, a spirit in the shape of a
spirited, snorting horse, killed twelve miners, and obliged those who
worked the mine to abandon the undertaking, though it brought them in
a great deal. In another mine, called St. Gregory, in Siveberg, there
appeared a spirit whose head was covered with a black hood, and he
seized a miner, raised him up to a considerable height, then let him
fall, and hurt him extremely.

Olaus Magnus[279] says that, in Sweden and other northern countries,
they