help; Simon Magus, Cinops, Apollonius Tianeus, Jamblichus, and Tritemius of late, that showed Maximilian the emperor his wife, after she was dead; Et verrucam in collo ejus (saith [1189]Godolman) so much as the wart in her neck.  Delrio, lib. 2. hath divers examples of their feats:  Cicogna, lib. 3. cap. 3. and Wierus in his book de praestig. daemonum.  Boissardus de magis et veneficis.

Water-devils are those Naiads or water nymphs which have been heretofore conversant about waters and rivers.  The water (as Paracelsus thinks) is their chaos, wherein they live; some call them fairies, and say that Habundia is their queen; these cause inundations, many times shipwrecks, and deceive men divers ways, as Succuba, or otherwise, appearing most part (saith Tritemius) in women’s shapes. [1190]Paracelsus hath several stories of them that have lived and been married to mortal men, and so continued for certain years with them, and after, upon some dislike, have forsaken them.  Such a one as Aegeria, with whom Numa was so familiar, Diana, Ceres, &c. [1191]Olaus Magnus hath a long narration of one Hotherus, a king of Sweden, that having lost his company, as he was hunting one day, met with these water nymphs or fairies, and was feasted by them; and Hector Boethius, or Macbeth, and Banquo, two Scottish lords, that as they were wandering in the woods, had their fortunes told them by three strange women.  To these, heretofore, they did use to sacrifice, by that [Greek:  hydromanteia], or divination by waters.

Terrestrial devils are those [1192]Lares, genii, fauns, satyrs, [1193] wood-nymphs, foliots, fairies, Robin Goodfellows, trulli, &c., which as they are most conversant with men, so they do them most harm.  Some think it was they alone that kept the heathen people in awe of old, and had so many idols and temples erected to them.  Of this range was Dagon amongst the Philistines, Bel amongst the Babylonians, Astartes amongst the Sidonians, Baal amongst the Samaritans, Isis and Osiris amongst the Egyptians, &c.; some put our [1194]fairies into this rank, which have been in former times adored with much superstition, with sweeping their houses, and setting of a pail of clean water, good victuals, and the like, and then they should not be pinched, but find money in their shoes, and be fortunate in their enterprises.  These are they that dance on heaths and greens, as [1195] Lavater thinks with Tritemius, and as [1196]Olaus Magnus adds, leave that green circle, which we commonly find in plain fields, which others hold to proceed from a meteor falling, or some accidental rankness of the ground, so nature sports herself; they are sometimes seen by old women and children.  Hierom.  Pauli, in his description of the city of Bercino in Spain, relates how they have been familiarly seen near that town, about fountains and hills; Nonnunquam (saith Tritemius) in sua latibula montium simpliciores homines ducant,