Observations placeholder
Reginald Scot – Discoveries of Witchcraft 1665
Identifier
014770
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
At times I got just the vague feeling that some of the early myths surrounding so called 'familiars' may have been about 'fools' with odd insights. They were as real as you and I, but being a bit insane, they were employed to do house jobs and then gained a reputation as a sort of ‘god’ because of the strange things they said and the insights they appeared to have
A description of the experience
Reginald Scot – Discoveries of Witchcraft 1665
Luridian, a familiar, did for many years inhabit the island of Pomonia, the largest of the Orkades in Scotland, supplying the place of man servant and maid servant with wonderful diligence to those families whom he did haunt, sweeping their rooms and washing their dishes and making their fires before any were up in the morning.
This Luridian affirmed that he was the genius Astral of that island, that his place of residence in the days of Soloman and David was at Jerusalem; that then he was called by the Jews Belelah; after that, he remained long in the dominion of Wales, instructing their bards in British poesy and prophecies, being called Wrthin, Wadd, Elgin; 'and now' said he 'I have removed hither and alas! My continuance is but short, for in seventy years I must resign my place to Balkin, Lord of the Northern Mountains'.
Many wonderful and incredible things did he also relate of this Balkin, affirming that he was shaped like a satyr and fed upon the air, having wife and children to the number of 12,000, which were the brood of Northern Fairies, inhabiting Southerland and Cateness, with the adjacent islands.
And that these were the companies of spirits that hold continual wars with the fiery spirits in the mountain Heckla, that vomits fire in Islandia. That their speech was ancient Irish and their dwelling the caverns of the rocks and mountains, which relation is recorded in the antiquities of Pomonia