miliar demons, whom they call _troles_,
who wait upon them as servants, and warn them of the accidents or
illnesses which are to happen to them; they awake them to go a-fishing
when the season is favorable, and if they go for that purpose without
the advice of these genii, they do not succeed. There are some persons
among these people who evoke the dead, and make them appear to those
who wish to consult them: they also conjure up the appearance of the
absent far from the spot where they dwell.

Father Vadingue relates, after an old manuscript legend, that a lady
named Lupa had had during thirteen years a familiar demon, who served
her as a waiting-woman, and led her into many secret irregularities,
and induced her to treat her servants with inhumanity. God gave her
grace to see her fault, and to do penance for it, by the intercession
of St. Francois d'Assise and St. Anthony of Padua, to whom she had
always felt particular devotion.

Cardan speaks of a bearded demon of Niphus, who gave him lessons of
philosophy.

Agrippa had a demon who waited upon him in the shape of a dog. This
dog, says Paulus Jovius, seeing his master about to expire, threw
himself into the Rhone.

Much is said of certain spirits[281] which are kept confined in rings,
that are bought, sold, or exchanged. They speak also of a crystal
ring, in which the demon represented the objects desired to be seen.

Some also speak highly of those enchanted mirrors,[282] in which
children see the face of a robber who is sought for; others will see
it in their nails; all which can only be diabolical illusions.

Le Loyer relates[283] that when he was studying the law at Thoulouse,
he was lodged near a house where an elf never ceased all the night to
draw water from the well, making the pulley creak all the while; at
other times, he seemed to drag something heavy up the stairs; but he
very rarely entered the rooms, and then he made but little noise.

Footnotes:

[269] Matt. xviii. 10.

[270] Psalm xc. 11.

[271] Isai. xiii. 22. Pilosi saltabunt ibi.

[272] Isai. xxxiv. 15.

[273] Cassian, Collat. vii. c. 23.

[274] "Quos seductores et joculatores esse manifestum est, cum
nequaquam tormentis eorum, quos praetereuntes potuerint decipere,
oblectentur, sed de risu tantum modo et illusione contenti, fatigare
potius, studeant, quam nocere."

[275] Plin. i. 7. Epist. 27, suiv.

[276] Life of Plotin. art. x.

[277] Chron. Hirsaug. ad ann. 1130.

[278