Читать книгу Types of Prose Narratives - Harriott Ely Fansler - Страница 37

Esprit Follet—the house-spirit of France.

Familiar spirit—a spirit or demon supposed to be summoned by a necromancer or a soothsayer from the unseen world to attend upon him as a servant.

Fay—the French word for fairy, anglicised.

Gnome—one of a fabulous race of dwarfed and misshapen earth-spirits or goblins, reputed to be special guardians of mines and miners. (<French gnome, from the Greek.)

Hag—a forbidding or malicious old woman; a witch. (<A. S. haegtes, a fury.)

Hamadryad—a wood-nymph fabled to live and die with the tree she inhabited, the oak being considered as the tree preferred. (Greek mythology.)

Hornie, or Horny—the devil; so called because commonly represented with horns.

Imp—an evil spirit of low rank; a small, puny, or contemptible devil. (Russian folk tales often make use of this spirit.)

Undine—a female water-spirit without a soul, with which she might be endowed only by marrying a mortal and bearing a child. (<Latin unda, wave.)

Werwolf—a person who, according to mediæval superstition, became voluntarily or involuntarily a wolf and in that form practiced cannibalism. (<A. S. wer, man + wulf, wolf.)

Wraith—a fantom of a living person, supposed to be ominous of that person's death.

Lamia—a female demon or vampire that enticed youths and fed upon their flesh and blood. (Classical mythology.)

Merrow—a mermaid. (Irish mythology.)

Monaciello—the house-spirit of Naples.

Nightmare—an evil spirit once supposed to oppress people during sleep. Called also Incubus. (<A. S. niht, night + maere, a nightmare.)

Ogre—a demon or monster that was supposed to devour human beings. (<French ogre. The derivation is uncertain.)

Ouphe—an elf or fairy. (<the Scandinavian. A variation of oaf = elf.)

Pigwidgeon—a very small fairy.

Sprite—a spirit of the earth or air.

Sylph—originally, a being, male or female, living in and on the air and intermediate between material and immaterial beings. (Used by Paracelsus. The word is undoubtedly of Greek origin.)