Translated by Scott G. Bruce from the Latin Vulgate version of Genesis 6:1–8.
Enoch 6–11, trans. R. H. Charles, in The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1913), vol. 2, pp. 191–99 (modified).
Jared was a Jewish patriarch of the sixth generation after Adam and Eve and the father of Enoch. Mount Hermon is the highest point of the mountain range that separates modern Syria and Lebanon.
The list is incomplete. One name has been lost in the manuscript transmission.
A cubit was a unit of measurement based on the distance between a grown man’s fingertips and elbow (about eighteen inches), so these giants were thought to be thousands of feet tall.
The name Duda’el means “cauldron of God” in Hebrew. Its location is unknown.
In the text that follows, Enoch’s visions are sometimes fragmentary and garbled because they have been preserved out of order in the manuscript tradition.
The Dan River is a northern tributary of the Jordan River. It was named after the city of Dan, the northernmost settlement of ancient Israel located in the shadow of the mountains separating modern Israel and Lebanon.
The exact location of Lesya’el is unknown. Sanser is another name for Mount Hermon.
In ancient Judaism, cherubim are angelic creatures who served God in Heaven.
Jubilees 4:15–25, 5:1–11, 7:19–28, and 10:1–13, trans. R. H. Charles, in The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1913), vol. 2, pp. 18–20, 24, and 27–28 (modified).
This is a play on words in Hebrew, as the root of the name Jared derives from the word for “descend.”
This passage refers to the visions collected in the Book of Enoch. See the previous entry in this chapter.
Translated by Scott G. Bruce from Josephus, De bello Judaico libri septem 7.6.3, ed. Edward Caldwell, 2 vols. (Oxford: E Typographeo Academico, 1837), vol. 2, p. 371.
Translated by Scott G. Bruce from the Latin Vulgate version of the Gospel of Matthew 4:1–11.
Translated by Scott G. Bruce from the Latin Vulgate version of the Gospel of Mark 5:1–20.
Translated by Scott G. Bruce from the Latin Vulgate version of the Acts of the Apostles 16:16–19.
Justin Martyr, 2 Apologia 5, trans. Philip Schaff, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1 (New York: Christian Literature, 1885), p. 190 (modified).
Tertullian, De spectaculis 25–26, trans. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1918), pp. 89–90 (modified).
Tertullian, Apologeticus 22, trans. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1918), pp. 36–37 (modified).
Jerome, Epistola 124, trans. W. H. Fremantle, G. Lewis, and W. G. Martley, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Volume 6 (New York: Christian Literature, 1893), pp. 238–44 (modified).
Epicurus (341–271 BCE) and other ancient atomist philosophers believed in the plurality of worlds.
Augustine, Concerning the City of God Against the Pagans 8.14, 16–17, 22, and 9.13, trans. Henry Bettenson (New York: Penguin Books, 1972), pp. 318–19, 321–23, 330, and 360.
Translated by Scott G. Bruce in The Penguin Book of Hell (New York: Penguin Books, 2018), pp. 37–44.
Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Selections, trans. Christopher Stace (New York: Penguin Books, 1998), pp. 149–51.
For the earliest version of this confrontation, as told in the second-century Acts of Peter, see The Book of Magic: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment, ed. Brian Copenhaver (New York: Penguin Books, 2015), pp. 219–21.
Translated by Scott G. Bruce from the Latin Vulgate version of 1 Kings 4:29–34.
Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 8.2.5, trans. William Whiston, in The Works of Josephus (Hartford, CT: S. S. Scranton, 1905), pp. 248–49 (modified).
Vespasian was emperor of Rome from 69 to 79 CE.
Translated by D. C. Duling in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume 1: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments, ed. James H. Charlesworth (London: Doubleday, 1983), pp. 960–87.
In premodern folklore, demons and other malevolent spirits have an aversion to iron.
Storax is a fragrant balsam from the bark of a tree related to witch hazel commonly used as incense in the ancient world.
Elo-i means “my God” in Aramaic, perhaps a reference to Jesus’s utterance on the cross (Mark 15:34 and Matthew 27:46).
Probably a reference to 1 Kings 2:25, Solomon’s execution of Adonijah.
A clear reference to the demon who identifies himself by the same name in Mark 5:1–13. see this page, above.
A clear allusion to the crucifixion of Jesus.
On the queen’s visit to Solomon, see 1 Kings 10:1–13.
Psalm 118:22.
On these events, see Exodus 4–14.
Athanasius, Vita Antonii 5, 8, 9–10, 22–23, 35, and 53, trans. Carolinne White, in Early Christian Lives (New York: Penguin Books, 1998), pp. 11–12, 14–16, 23–24, 30–31, and 41.
Jerome, Vita Hilarii 23, trans. Carolinne White, in Early Christian Lives (New York: Penguin Books, 1998), p. 101.
Sulpicius Severus, Vita Martini 17, trans. Carolinne White, in Early Christian Lives (New York: Penguin Books, 1998), pp. 149–51.
Martin of Braga, De correctione rusticorum, trans. Brian Copenhaver, in The Book of Magic: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment (New York: Penguin Books, 2015), pp. 248–50.
Gregory the Great, Dialogorum libri quattuor 1.4, trans. Philip Woodward, in The Dialogues of Gregory the Great (London: Philip Lee Warner, 1911), pp. 17–18 (modified).
Gregory the Great, Dialogorum libri quattuor 3.7, trans. Woodward, pp. 113–16 (modified).
Translated by Scott G. Bruce in The Penguin Book of the Undead: Fifteen Hundred Years of Supernatural Encounters (New York: Penguin Books, 2016), pp. 81–84.
Translated by W. Tanner Smoot and Scott G. Bruce from Felix, Vita sancti Guthlaci 31–34, ed. Bertram Colgrave, in Felix’s Life of Saint Guthlac (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), pp. 101–11.
Compare Psalm 15:8.
Psalm 84:7.
The Koran 34.12–14, 46.29–33, and 72.1–13, trans. N. J. Dawood (New York: Penguin Books, 2015), pp. 428, 505, and 571.
Epistles of the Brethren of Purity 22.8, trans. Lenn E. Goodman and Richard McGregor, in The Case of the Animals versus Man Before the King of the Jinn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 131–33 and 42.
Idrīs is the Arabic name of the biblical prophet Enoch, who foretold the fall of the rebel angels. see this page, above.
A mangonel is a kind of catapult.
See Qur’an 34:10–14.
Bilqīs is the Arabic name for the Queen of Sheba, who visited Solomon and bestowed many gifts upon him. See 1 Kings 10:1–13 and Qur’an 27:15–45.
Compare Qur’an 27:38–40.
See Qur’an 72:8–9.
Qur’an 72:10.
Qur’an 72:1–2.
The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, trans. Malcolm C. Lyons, 3 vols. (London: Penguin Classics, 2008), vol. 3, pp. 746–56.
The Arabian Nights, trans. Lyons, vol. 1, pp. 21–24 and 35–36.
Qur’an 17:36.
The Arabian Nights, trans. Lyons, vol. 2, pp. 527–30.
Translated by Richard P. H. Greenfield from Michael Psellos [?], Concerning Demons, ed. Paul Gautier, in “Le De daemonibus du Pseudo-Psellos,” Revue des études byzantines 38 (1980): 105–94, at pp. 163–77.
The source of the maxim attributed to Antigonos is unknown.
The quotation is from Homer, Iliad 3.35.
On the demon Onoskelis, who appeared to King Solomon as a beautiful woman with the legs of a mule, see this page, above.
Translated by Richard P. H. Greenfield from the anonymous Life and Conduct of the Saints of Christ Sysinnios and Sysinnodoros, the Brothers of Saint Meletene, ed. Richard P. H. Greenfield, in “Saint Sisinnios, the Archangel Michael and the Female Demon Gylou: The Typology of the Greek Literary Stories,” Byzantina 15 (1989): 83–142, at pp. 86–89.
Laurentios is a fictional king.
The meaning of this cryptic phrase is unclear.
See Luke 1:37, quoting Genesis 14:18.
In this case, the phylactery is the protective amulet with writing on it that keeps the demon at bay. This story is intended to provide a backstory to and convincing explanation for the effectiveness of written amulets containing the names of Gellou.
Translated by Richard P. H. Greenfield from the anonymous Conjuration of the Archangel against Spirits to be said for a House and over the Sick, ed. F. Pradel, in Griechische und süditalienische Gebete, Beschwörungen und Rezepte des Mittelalters (Giesen: A. Töpelmann, 1907), pp. 275–76.
Translated by Richard P. H. Greenfield from the anonymous Concerning the Beautiful Lady of the Mountains, ed. Armand Delatte, in Anecdota Atheniensia, Tome 1: Textes grecs inédits relatifs à l’histoire des religions (Paris: Édouard Champion, 1927), p. 600.
These magical words have no apparent meaning.
John Cuthbert Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in Survivals (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910), pp. 70–71 and 177–79 (slightly modified).
On Leo Allatios’s 1645 treatise On the Beliefs of Some Greeks Today (De Graecorum hodie quorundam opinationibus) and traditions about the Gellou preserved therein, see Karen Hartnup, “On the Beliefs of the Greeks”: Leo Allatios and Popular Orthodoxy (Leiden: Brill, 2004), pp. 85–172.
Translated by Scott G. Bruce from Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum 5.1, ed. Joseph Strange, 2 vols. (Cologne: H. Lempertz, 1851), vol. 1, pp. 274–76.
Isaiah 14:12.
Luke 10:18.
Job 1:6.
Psalm 109:6.
Habakkuk 3:5.
Apocalypse 12:7.
Ezekiel 28:12–13.
Ephesians 2:2.
Psalm 74:23.
John 8:41 and 44.
Job 40:23.
1 Peter 5:8–9.
Matthew 25:41.
Translated by Scott G. Bruce in The Penguin Book of Hell (New York: Penguin Classics, 2018), pp. 96–101.
Compare Matthew 7:13.
Translated by W. Tanner Smoot and Scott G. Bruce from Osbern of Canterbury, Vita sancti Dunstani 14, ed. William Stubbs, in Memorials of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury (London: Longman, 1874), pp. 84–85.
Mark 9:28.
Translated by Scott G. Bruce from Stephen of Bourbon, Tractatus de diversis materiis praedicabilibus 370, ed. A. Lecoy de la Marche, in Anecdotes historiques, légendes et apologues tirés du recueil inédit d’Étienne de Bourbon, dominicain du XIIIe siècle (Paris: Librairie Renouard, 1877), pp. 325–28.
Translated by Scott G. Bruce from Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum 5.2, 5.4, and 5.7, ed. Joseph Strange, 2 vols. (Cologne: H. Lempertz, 1851), vol. 1, pp. 276–78, 279–81, and 287.
These five vignettes about the demon Tityvillus have been translated by Scott G. Bruce from the following sources: (a) Jacques de Vitry, Exempla ex sermonibus vulgaribus 19, ed. Thomas Frederick Crane, in The Exempla, or Illustrative Stories from the Sermones Vulgares of Jacques de Vitry (London: Folk-Lore Society, 1890), p. 6; (b) Jacques de Vitry, Exempla ex sermonibus vulgaribus 239, ed. Crane, in The Exempla, p. 100; (c) A Selection of Latin Stories from Manuscripts of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, ed. Thomas Wright (London: Percy Society, 1842), p. 44; (d) Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum 4.9, ed. Joseph Strange, 2 vols. (Cologne: H. Lempertz, 1851), vol. 1, pp. 181; and (e) Stephen of Bourbon, Tractatus de diversis materiis praedicabilibus 212, ed. A. Lecoy de la Marche, in Anecdotes historiques, légendes et apologues tirés du recueil inédit d’Étienne de Bourbon, dominicain du XIIIe siècle (Paris: Librairie Renouard, 1877), pp. 184–85.
Translated by Scott G. Bruce from Narrationes aliquot fabulosae 30, ed. David R. Winter, in The Llanthony Stories (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2021), pp. 104–5.
Translated by Scott G. Bruce from Jacques de Vitry, Exempla ex sermonibus vulgaribus 243, ed. Thomas Frederick Crane, in The Exempla, or Illustrative Stories from the Sermones Vulgares of Jacques de Vitry (London: Folk-Lore Society, 1890) p. 102.
Translated by Benjamin A. Bertrand and Scott G. Bruce from Navigatio sancti Brendani 11, ed. Carl Selmer, Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis from the Early Latin Manuscripts (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1959), pp. 22–25.
Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival 9 and 16, trans. A. T. Hatto (New York: Penguin Classics, 1980), pp. 232, 240, and 395.
Translated by Scott G. Bruce in The Penguin Book of Hell (New York: Penguin Classics, 2018), pp. 141–43 (Inferno, Canto 3, lines 16–51).
John Gaule, Select Cases of Conscience Touching Witches and Witchcrafts (London: W. Wilson, 1646), pp. 68–69.
Translated by Scott G. Bruce from Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda Aurea 131, ed. T. Graesse, in Jacobi a Voragine, Legenda Aurea, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Libraria Arnoldiana, 1881), pp. 593–94.
The History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus 1592, ed. William Rose (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1925), pp. 67–79.
A fathom is six feet in length.
“Crisam” is an English rendering of the Greek word chrisma, the oil used for anointing.
The Latin phrase “O homo, fuge!” means “Flee, O man!”
John Milton, Paradise Lost: A Poem in Twelve Books, 2nd ed. (London: S. Simmons, 1674), pp. 3–5 (Book 1, lines 33–83).
Matthew 10:25; Mark 3:22; and Luke 11:15.
Milton, Paradise Lost, pp. 11–19 (Book 1, lines 314–507 and 522–73).
Amram’s son was Moses. For what follows, see Exodus 10:12–15.
A reference to the barbarian peoples who invaded the Roman Empire in the early fifth century.
Compare Revelation 20:11–15.
A reference to fallen angels taking the names of pagan gods. see this page, above.
Moloch was a Canaanite god associated with child sacrifice.
Chemosh was a Moabite diety. See 1 Kings 11:7.
Ezekiel 8:14.
Exodus 32:1–20.
The rebel king is Jeroboam. See 1 Kings 12:28–30.
Milton, Paradise Lost, pp. 20 and 22–26 (Book 1, lines 615–21 and 663–799).
The Rig Veda 7.102, trans. Wendy Doniger (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), pp. 293 and 295.
Abolqasem Ferdowsi, Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings, trans. Dick Davis (New York: Penguin Books, 2016), pp. 11 and 13–14.
Pu Songling, Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, trans. John Minford (New York: Penguin Books, 2006), pp. 143 and 145–49.
Pu Songling, Strange Tales, trans. Minford, pp. 95 and 97.
Pu Songling, Strange Tales, trans. Minford, pp. 18 and 20–22.
Pu Songling, Strange Tales, trans. Minford, pp. 126–27 and 129–30.
Augustine, Concerning the City of God Against the Pagans 15.23, trans. Henry Bettenson (New York: Penguin Books, 1972), pp. 637–38.
Augustine, Concerning the City of God 3.5, trans. Bettenson, pp. 92–93.
Psalm 104:4.
See, for example, Genesis 10:1–22 and Judges 6:12–22.
Silvanus was an agricultural deity, while Pan was a pastoral god identified with the Roman Faunus.
Translated by Scott G. Bruce from Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum 3.7–12, ed. Joseph Strange, 2 vols. (Cologne: H. Lempertz, 1851), vol. 1, pp. 120–24.
Heinrich Kraemer, Malleus maleficarum, Part II, Qn. 1, Ch. 4, trans. Montague Summers (London: John Rodker, 1928), pp. 109–14.
Nicolas Rémy, Demonolatry 1.6, trans. E. A. Ashwin (London: John Rodker, 1930), pp. 11–14.
Plutarch (ca. 46–ca. 120 CE) composed many biographies of notable Greeks and Romans, including an account of the life of Numa, the legendary second king of Rome.
Peter Paludanus (ca. 1275–1342) was a thirteenth-century prelate who served as the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, while Martin of Arles (ca. 1451–1521) was a canon and archdeacon who wrote against witches active in the Pyrenees.
Basil of Caesarea (330–78) was an influential theologian who was well-known in the western tradition for his teachings about Christian asceticism.
Alessandro Alessandri (1461–1523) was an Italian lawyer and humanist.
Most likely Gerolamo Cardano (1501–76), a prolific Renaissance scientist.
Averroës (1126–98) was a medieval Muslim philosopher active in Spain, while Albertus Magnus (ca. 1200–1280) was a learned Dominican friar in Germany.
The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Part VIII, ed. Francis James Child (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1882), pp. 366–67 (no. 243E: The Daemon Lover).
Walter Scott, “Glenfinlas,” in The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott (Boston: Phillips, Sampson, 1850), pp. 516–20.
The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France 1610–1791, Volume XLVI (Lower Canada, Ottawas, Canadian Interior, 1659–1661), ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers, 1899), pp. 264–65.
Paul Kane, Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of North America (London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1859), pp. 58–60.
Henry Youle Hind, Explorations in the Interior of the Labrador Peninsula, 2 vols. (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1863), vol. 1, pp. 58–59.
William W. Canfield, The Legends of the Iroquois Told by “The Cornplanter” (New York: A. Wessels, 1902), pp. 125–26.
Sabine Baring-Gould, A Book of the West, Volume 1: Devon (London: Methuen, 1899), pp. 183–84.
M. R. James, “Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book,” in Ghost-Stories of an Antiquary (London: Edward Arnold, 1905), pp. 3–28, at pp. 10–28.
A missal is a common book that contains the services for the Christian mass over the course of a year.
An antiphoner is another common liturgical book that contains the chants known as antiphons sung by the choir during the church service.
Uncial is a kind of Latin script employed by scribes between the fourth and eighth centuries.
Papias (ca. 60–ca. 130 CE) was an obscure early Christian bishop, whose writings are known to us only through quotations by later authors.
Old St. Paul’s: A Tale of the Plague and the Fire was the name of a novel written by William Harrison Ainsworth, which was serialized in 1841. It included a chapter in which a seventeenth-century canon claims to have used astrological calculations to discover treasure hidden beneath St. Paul’s Cathedral.
This French phrase translates as “Twice I have seen him; a thousand times have I felt his presence.”
Psalm 91.
Ecclesiasticus 39:28.
Isaiah 34:14.
Adapted and rendered into modern English by Scott G. Bruce from the oral account of Mr. Richard Wyche (1867–1930) printed in John Harrington Cox, “Negro Tales from West Virginia,” Journal of American Folklore 47 (1934): 341–57, at 341–42.
H. P. Lovecraft, “Night-Gaunts,” Weird Tales (December 1939), p. 59.