ans of justly
discerning between them.

But who shall give us the knowledge necessary for such discerning, so
difficult and yet so requisite, since we have not even any certain and
demonstrative marks by which to discern infallibly between true and
false miracles, or to distinguish the works of the Almighty from the
illusions of the angel of darkness.

Footnotes:

[474]
"Neu pransae lamiae vivum puerum ex trahat alvo."
_Horat. Art. Poet._ 340.

[475]
"Carpere dicuntur lactentia viscera rostris,
Et plenum poco sanguine guttur habent,
Est illis strigibus nomen."

[476] Capitul. Caroli Magni pro partibus Saxoniae, i. 6:--"Si quis a
Diabolo deceptus crediderit secundum morem Paganorum, virum aliquem
aut foeminam strigem esse, et homines comedere; et propter hoc ipsum
incenderit, vel carnem ejus ad comedendum dederit, vel ipsam comederit
capitis sententia puniatur."

[477] Le Loyer, des Spectres, lib. ii. p. 427.

[478] Mich. Glycas, part iv. Annal.

[479] Aug. Epist. 658, and Epist. 258, p. 361.

CHAPTER XVII.

OF GHOSTS IN THE NORTHERN COUNTRIES.

Thomas Bartholin, the son, in his treatise entitled "_Of the Causes of
the contempt of Death felt by the Ancient Danes while yet Gentiles_,"
remarks[480] that a certain Hordus, an Icelander, saw spectres with
his bodily eyes, fought against them and resisted them. These
thoroughly believed that the spirits of the dead came back with their
bodies, which they afterwards forsook and returned to their graves.
Bartholinus relates in particular that a man named Asmond, son of
Alfus, having had himself buried alive in the same sepulchre with his
friend Asvitus, and having had victuals brought there, was taken out
from thence some time after covered with blood, in consequence of a
combat he had been obliged to maintain against Asvitus, who had
haunted him and cruelly assaulted him.

He reports after that what the poets teach concerning the vocation of
spirits by the power of magic, and of their return into bodies which
are not decayed although a long time dead. He shows that the Jews have
believed the same--that the souls came back from time to time to
revisit their dead bodies during the first year after their decease.
He demonstrates that the ancient northern nations were persuaded that
persons recently deceased often made their bodily appearance; and he
relates some examples of it: he adds that they attacked the