New York
Henry Holt and Company
1879
Preface.
Three Friars, says a legend, hid themselves near theWitch Sabbath orgies that they might count the devils; but the Chief ofthese, discovering the friars, said—‘Reverend Brothers, ourarmy is such that if all the Alps, their rocks and glaciers, wereequally divided among us, none would have a pound’sweight.’ This was in one Alpine valley. Any one who has caughtbut a glimpse of the world’s Walpurgis Night, as revealed inMythology and Folklore, must agree that this courteous devil did notoverstate the case. Any attempt to catalogue the evil spectres whichhave haunted mankind were like trying to count the shadows cast uponthe earth by the rising sun. This conviction has grown upon the authorof this work at every step in his studies of the subject.
In 1859 I contributed, as one of the American ‘Tracts for theTimes,’ a pamphlet entitled ‘The Natural History of theDevil.’ Probably the chief value of that essay was to myself, andthis in that its preparation had revealed to me how pregnant withinterest and importance was the subject selected. Subsequent researchesin the same direction, after I had come to reside in Europe, revealedhow slight had been my conception of the vastness of the domain uponwhich that early venture was made. In 1872, while preparing a series oflectures for the Royal [vi]Institution on Demonology, itappeared to me that the best I could do was to print those lectureswith some notes and additions; but after they were delivered therestill remained with me unused the greater part of materials collectedin many countries, and the phantasmal creatures which I had evokedwould not permit me to rest from my labours until I had dealt with themmore thoroughly.
The fable of Thor’s attempt to drink up a small spring, andhis failure because it