THE OCCULT SCIENCES. 



antics ; the folkts, who led the traveller astray by false lights; the Ittitom, or 

 lufins ; and the metallic spirits, in whom it is easy to recognise the emana- 

 tions of inflammable gas which produce so many sudden explosions in the 

 mines, and which are known as fire-damp. 



Demons, too, were the men-wolves and men-dogs, which were very 

 similar to the ogres, or ouigoitrs, which really existed in the Mongolian hordes, 

 and whose terrible aspect caused them to be the terror of the populations. 



The loups-garoiis (Fig. 169), men whom a pact with the devil compelled 

 to assume the face of a wolf once a year, scoured the woods and fields, 



Fig. 169. The Han-dog, the Man-wolf, the Man-bull, and the Man-pig. After the Miniatures 

 in the " Livre des Merveilles du Monde." Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century. In the 

 National Library, Paris. 



devouring the young children : like the vampires in Poland, the broucofaqucs 

 in Greece, and the white men in Provence, they thirsted after human blood. 

 Occult philosophy recognised, in addition, the existence of many other spirits 

 of a more inoffensive kind, whom it comprised under the generic name of 

 elementary spirits, because they inhabited the four elements: sylphs, in the 

 air ; talamtaukn, in the fire ; gnomes, in the earth ; ondins, in the waters. 



All the beings of the invisible world were subject to the influence or 

 domination of magic, which always proceeded, though in different degrees, 

 from the works of the demon ; but in the Middle Ages there were various 

 sectaries of this infernal art. The enchanters, the charmers (male or female), 



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