Demons and Spirits of the Land: Ancestral Lore and Practices

INTRODUCTION

We Dwell in a Haunted Place

In the beginning there was space and the space was frightening. Man felt lost within it, confronted as he was by its vastness, a source of uncertainty and mystery. It took countless centuries for man to learn to know the earth, investing in it and mastering it. Subject to the whims of nature, washed by the rains and dried by the winds, warmed by the sun and chilled by the frosts, amazed or stricken by phenomena he was utterly incapable of grasping, man felt like an intruder inside a wild and still untamed nature, or at least this is how he perceived it. He then reacted with all the means at his disposal. He learned to know the plants and animals and assured his survival by giving them names. He deified all that threatened or awed him, and implemented propitiatory rites. In short, he developed a religious sensibility. Everywhere around him he saw traces of the invisible, traces of another reality attesting to the presence of myriad unspeakable creatures.

Without our knowing, we dwell in a haunted space—certainly more than in former times when the ghosts of vanished generations continued to accompany the living, when technological progress had not depopulated the spirit world. If you need convincing, simply cast a glance at the folk traditions that persisted into the dawn of the twentieth century in the rural areas across all Europe. One need only glance at any detailed map to find the Fairy Rocks, Devil’s Bridges, the Pierrefittes,*1 and the Dragon Springs, and if we take the trouble to leaf through the delightful works of nineteenth-century regional scholars, we will discover that every forest has its spirits, every spring its lady, every river has malevolent beings in its depths, that dwarves dance on the moors, that the marshes are teeming with will o’ the wisps—which, we are told, are lost souls—and that the mountains are home to demons and wild folk who enjoy causing landslides, avalanches, and floods.

Studying the relations that our remote ancestors maintained with their environment is one means of better understanding humanity, for we are inscribed within history like links of a chain, and if we want to understand our world and that of our ancestors, we have to look back.

The field of research upon which I am embarking here is already known to some experts who have clearly recognized that space is sacred, without, however, going beyond that observation. In France, the organization Société de Mythologie Française has often shown that the human being is inseparable from his natural surroundings and that his relationship with it structures his imagination, steers his thoughts, and incorporates him within the cosmos. The study of mythical geography—the legends, myths, and beliefs attached to places—has revealed the importance of the local landscape in the formation of tales and rites. Place-names, in combination with scriptural and epigraphic accounts, make it possible to discover the roots of beliefs, as the traces still survive almost everywhere and these place-names function as supports in the collective memory. Some components of the landscape have been the subject of monographs—mountains and forests, for example—but the most interesting considerations are to be found in articles from specialized journals that are little known to the general public, and in works dealing with completely different topics.

Medieval literature in Latin and in the vernacular languages offers the advantage of presenting us with real or fictionalized accounts from an era in which Cartesian rationalism and the so-called exact sciences had not yet elevated doubt and experimentation to the status of canonical virtues. The Arthurian romances depict a world in which everything is possible, with supernatural beings as well as God and the saints all making their appearances. The historical chronicles are filled with marvels and oddities, and the bestiaries are rich with inconceivable animals. By patiently collating these texts, shunning no written works, it is possible to draw up the little-known history of land spirits—those spirits that medieval Christians rejected as demons.

But to what, exactly, does the term land spirit refer? The word spirit has various meanings; among other things, it designates a tutelary deity attached to an individual, or a supernatural being endowed with powers surpassing our understanding, and it is also a synonym for demon, elf, fairy, and so on. In modern French, the land where this spirit dwells would be a terroir, a word that derives from the vulgar Latin territorium, originally designating a territory, a country, or an expanse of land; later, a soil good for the cultivation of wine; and lastly, a rural region. (The latter two senses are essentially the meaning of terroir as it survives today.) The term land spirit is my translation for the Latin genius loci, place spirit; in other words, a numen, a daimon attached to a specific place that it owns and protects against any incursion. By place I mean an uninhabited land that is still wild and uncultivated. Thus, I will not be dealing with household spirits, who are attached to a dwelling, because that subject is too large and deserves its own monograph to do justice to all its many facets. This distinction—which may seem arbitrary in light of the fact that land spirits can easily become domestic spirits—is therefore necessary, and it prevents us from going astray along the meandering paths of now almost completely erased ancestral traditions about which the texts speak little, as is the case with anything controversial.

The clerical interpretation of pagan beliefs and their demonization have, until now, formed an obstacle to the understanding of scriptural accounts as well as their interpretation. One question continually arises: are we dealing here with a spirit or a devil, a spirit or a demon? Another question accompanies this one: how truthful are the texts? Furthermore, is it really necessary to view the fictional literature as being in opposition to the scholarly or clerical texts, or the culture of the elite in opposition to the popular culture? I do not think so, because every narrative is fueled by reality and is its mirror. It can certainly be a distorted mirror, but it is a mirror nonetheless.

Are there one or more fundamental differences between the Roman, Celtic, and Germanic worlds? The reading of the texts obliges us to answer in the negative because the divergences are most often the result of local adaptations of identical structures: ecotypes, in other words. This all compels us to offer a postulate that there are many anthropological structures of the imaginal realm, as Gilbert Durand has shown, that show little variation, at least among the various Indo-European peoples. Of course they are all at a similar stage of development; that goes without saying. If there are any doubts, reread the great classic Frazer’s The Golden Bough, or Krappe’s La Genèse des Mythes (The Genesis of Myths), or a few books by Mircea Eliade. The examples given in these works are taken from all of the earth’s peoples and the similarities are baffling. As a correlate of the postulate given above, I suggest that the imagination feeds on realia—transforming, transposing, and projecting them into the realm of myth, or maintaining them in the sphere of beliefs that are mistakenly labeled superstitions.

In the dossier I am presenting here, which is an extension of my research into the strange and unusual creatures from medieval literature—ghosts, revenants, dwarves, elves, fairies, witches, and werewolves—the crucial question remains the following: how do we identify a spirit beneath its various disguises?

The same problem arose for Pierre Saintyves when he studied the saints, behind whom were not only concealed the gods (his major theory) but also the spirits of the land. As it was reconstituted into literary forms and/or Christianized, the folk memory combined different individuals and regrouped them under generic names like dwarves and elves, giants and devils, and even dragons or fairies—who were not merely the direct heirs of the Parcae. The transposition of these beliefs into the domain of the marvelous allowed these beings to survive and weather the anathema of the ecclesiastical authorities, for whom such things were nothing but pagan remnants that needed to be eradicated—delenda est superstitio!

The spirits became perpetually mutating beings. Their shape, names, and appearances were protean, but their role, duties, and localization remained unchanged. In earlier studies I provided proof of this concerning elves and dwarves, whose connections with the world of the dead are striking. But it should be clearly noted that this is the characteristic of all extremely archaic creatures that are suggestive of primitive animism, which anthropomorphizes natural forces before they are eventually absorbed by the religions that form around them.

Narrative literature and the romances make use of this legacy. The more or less anthropomorphized spirits become human-like individuals, playing supporting or adversarial roles (as in the more recent tales), or they retain all their mystery (as in the story of Melusine). Who are these mysterious surveyors who emerge from nothingness to mark out the boundaries of the future domain of Lusignan? Those which have taken form as animals should not be excluded either, nor should inanimate forms, for in fact the spirit frequently evades any particualar shape. And if it sometimes resembles a human being, it is appropriate to ask ourselves whether this might not be a convention, a way to better grasp something that was ceaselessly escaping understanding. Look at what Paracelsus said about elementary spirits, and consider too the figure of Kühleborn (Fontfroide), the water spirit in Friedrich de la Motte-Fouqué’s Undine: it can take on any appearance, that of a man or that of a jet of water.

Once we have put the civilized space behind us, we literally enter the other world: that of the land spirits who preside over the various domains and who are hidden everywhere. A very lively German legend tells how one of these beings became the spirit of a place. In order to build his farm, a peasant cut down some trees and the spirit entered the house when the beams were brought in. If it is treated well—meaning if it is shown respect and given offerings on specific dates—the spirit becomes a valuable assistant, but it can be mischievous at times and sow such disorder in the household that the inhabitants will try to get rid of it. As long as a farm possesses an even-tempered spirit, the estate will prosper. Here we have caught a glimpse of the origin of the household spirit.

We shall begin by diving into this mystery, collecting examples of odd facts that remain unexplained. To see only marvels or great deviltries here, as they said during the Middle Ages, is to remain on the surface of things, to content ourselves with literary labels—in other words, to tackle the problem solely from the angle of how it was recycled in fiction. Alas, this is an error that is still committed far too often. We shall then examine the problem of the peopling of the earth—who came before man? Finally, we shall deal with those fictional accounts that bear witness to what became of the land spirits.

1

Unusual Manifestations

During the Middle Ages, countless texts were literally teeming with fantastic passages, sometimes accompanied by an explanation but more often presented with impenetrable brevity. They implicitly refer to the existence of an occult world, the laws of which are also in force on this plane. Authors frequently extricated themselves from this situation by recasting the facts from a Christian perspective in which they could be viewed as manifestations of divine omnipotence, for God is admirable in all his acts and the human mind is incapable of penetrating His secrets.

In the Konungs skuggsjá (King’s Mirror), written in Norway around 1260, there appears an Irish island that floated atop Lake Loghica. It only touched land on Sunday and healing herbs grew there. In the same book, we also find a particular spring whose water tastes like beer: When men try to build a house over the spring, it moves and gushes outside the dwelling (chap. 13). Further on, we see Lake Loghaerne (today called Lough Ree), which lies between the counties of Roscommon, Langford, and Westmeath in Ireland. The lake is covered with islands and on the largest of these, Kertinagh, the devils have as much power as they do in hell (chap. 14). According to other legends, the Purgatory of Saint Patrick is found on this island.

In his Topographia Hibernica (Topography of Ireland), Giraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales, ca. 1146–1223) mentions a lake that extends north of Munster and has two islands. No one can die on the smaller of the two isles and it is therefore called the Island of the Living (Insula viventium).¹ In his Itinerarium Cambriae (Journey through Wales), this same Gerald describes a stone that returns to the spot from which it has been taken. Hugh, the Earl of Shrewsbury, had it chained in another location but his efforts were in vain: the stone returned to its original location.² A similar phenomenon can be seen in the Historia Brittonum, attributed to Nennius. The stones removed from the tumulus where King Arthur’s dog Cabal is buried return of their own volition to the cairn (chap. 73). Nennius also talks of a mountain that revolves three times a year, stones that walk about at night, and a glass tower in the middle of the sea (chap. 75).³

The Konungs skuggsjá also recounts an interesting legend about Themar (Teamhar), better known today as Tara, the former capital of Ireland. The king rendered judgment there while seated on a throne placed upon a rise. One day he pronounced an iniquitous judgment and the earth turned upside down: What had been below was now above, all the houses and the royal hall sank into the depths of the earth (chap. 15). The Liber Monstrorum (Book of Monsters), written around the year 1000, states: It is said that monsters with three human heads live in the marshes, and a fable relates that they live in the depths of ponds like nymphs.⁴

These simple examples show immediately that unknown forces exist that sometimes assume a shape, such as that of a human or animal, or even an inanimate object. These creatures or objects in fact embody the forces in question and are a more expressive way of representing the latter.

Gervase of Tilbury, who around 1210 wrote his Otia Imperialia (Recreation for an Emperor) dedicated to Emperor Otto IV of Brunswick, also reported strange things. He mentions the city of Terdona in Italy, where Every time the head of a family is destined to die in the coming year, blood flows in one of the furrows cut by a plough blade on his lands (III, 7). In Catalonia, in the bishopric of Girona, there stands a mountain at the peak of which lies a lake of deep black waters whose depth cannot be sounded. It is said this is the site for a dwelling of demons. . . . If a stone or something heavy is cast into the lake, a storm bursts out at once, as if the demons were angered (III, 66).⁵ In his thirteenth-century Cronica (Chronicle), Salimbene di Adam indicates that Peter III of Aragon was caught in a storm one day on Mount Canigou. He found a pond and threw a stone into it, whereupon a dragon emerged that soared over the waters.⁶ Near Carlisle, in the British Isles, Gervase of Tilbury maintains there is a valley surrounded by mountains in the heart of a great forest where Every day at a certain time, a melodious carillon of bells can be heard there (III, 69). Why does this spring in the diocese of Uzès change location if something dirty is placed in it (III, 129)? Why do the coffins that float down the Rhône stop of their own accord at the Aliscamps cemetery (III, 90)? In the province of Aix, Gervase claims, there is a huge cliff whose steep face is pierced with windows in which appear two or three ladies who appear to be conversing but who vanish when approached (III, 43). In Livron Castle in the bishopric of Valence, there is a tower that cannot stand the presence of a night watchman: the man is carried away and deposited far down below in the valley (III, 20).⁷

Let us shift our focus to some other horizons. According to the Guta saga (Saga of the Gotlanders), which originally dates back to the early first half of the thirteenth century, the island of Gotland was enchanted (elvist) before it was colonized. During the day it sank beneath the waves and resurfaced at night.⁸ This story cannot help but bring to mind that of Tintagel Castle. In the twelfth-century Oxford version of La Folie Tristan (The Madness of Tristan), it was called the enchanted castle (chastel faez), because it vanished twice a year:

Tintagel li chastel faez

Chastel fä fu dit a droit

Kar dous faiz le an se perdeit . . .

Une en ivern, autre en esté. *2

We may also wonder about the meaning of the following facts: the Lake of Granlieu had the right of high, middle, and low justice. The tribunal sat in a boat two hundred feet from shore, and when the judge delivered a sentence, he had to touch the water with his foot.⁹

We quickly realize, on reading such narratives, that our world is haunted by invisible beings and forces, and this opinion persists into the present, which is proven time and again by the folk traditions and beliefs that have been collected up until the very recent past. Spirits loom up everywhere and place-names confirm the existence of mysterious figures, or at least the persistence of their memory. Here we have Dragon Spring (for example, the Foun del Drac in Lozère), and there the Fairy Well or the Fountain of the Ladies, names that evoke the spirits that preside over springs. During the fifteenth century it was almost proverbial to say something was as naked as a fairy coming out of the water.

Water, whether running or stagnant, reputedly sheltered many creatures, the majority of whom were dangerous. Mahwot from the Meuse River had the appearance of a lizard. Similar ones include the Vogeotte of the Doubs, the Carne Aquoire of the Blois region, the Drac of Auvergne, the Alsatian Hôgemann (the Man with the Fang), the Havette Beast of the region near the Hague, the Serpent of the Trou Baligan (Lower Normandy), the Gourgoule of the Underground Wells (Limousin), the Uillaout of Savoy, and the Morvandious Queular.¹⁰

Forests are home to will o’ the wisps and to the Hannequets of the Argonne, the Breton Kornikaned (Korrigans), the Weeper of the Woods from the Pontarlier region, the Waldensian Hutzeran, and the Ardennes Bauieux, and the Bredoulain Woods is the lair of the Huyeux. In the Ain region we find the Sauvageons; in the Beaujolais, the Fayettes; and Green Ladies, giants, and sprites abound almost everywhere.

On the moors, wisps, dwarves, white ladies, night shepherds (bugul-noz), alarming crones (groah), and sprites (the faulaux in Lower Normandy) come out to dance and attend to their occupations.

The mountains are a veritable refuge of genies and spirits, devils and demons. Here swarm the Daruc, a kind of werewolf, Nuitons, and Naroves (Savoy),¹¹ the Gögwargi (Upper Valois), and fairies. More than one farm has its Servan, a kind of domestic spirit, and the fouletot of the Jura Alps steals, feeds, and returns the finest cow of the herd while the cowherd is sleeping. A host of demons causes landslides,