Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-07-05
NAMES Of OLDEN FIENDS
REGINALD SCOTS DEFINITIONS
OF coaNoMENs.
Weird Terms and Wefrder Reasons for
Them-Some Too Obscure to
Be Explained.
From the London Globe.

From the London Globe.
When that old worthy. Reginald Scot
a man greatly In advance OF his times
wrote his Discovery OF Witchcraft" In
the latter half of the sixteenth century
he made himself the nomenclator OF many
early fiend names. most of which. unfor-
tunstely. stand mere appcIlations that
need gloss. TN our childhood our moth
ers' maids he says. $50 fray'd us with
bull-beggars. spirits. witches urchins elves.
hays. fairies. satyrs. Pans. flames. sylens
(sylvans). Kit-wi'- the-canstick tritons. CEN
taurs. dwarfs. gyants. impes. calcars. con-
Jurors. nymphs. changelings. incubus. Robin
Goodfellow. the spoorn. the mare. the man
in-the-oak. the heilwain. the nredrake. tho
puckle, Tom Thomte, Hobgobln Tom
Tumbler. Boneless. and such other bugs
that we are afraid of our own shadows"
His great namesake, Sir Walter Scott con-
fessed himself quite unable to explain some
of these terms. opining. however. that tho
Phuca IS a Celtic superstition. whence PoolS
or Puckle; that the man-in-the-oak was tho
same with the Erl-Konig of the Germans
ana that the helwain were kind of wan
dering spirits. the descendants of a cham
pion named Helequin the romance OF
Richard sans Peur" In this last coniec-
ture he was probably wrong: the hellwaIn
doubtless, being the hell-wagon. a sort OF
devils chariot still believed in by rustics
In fact, there Is a current rhyme which
says Give thing and take again and
you shall ride In hell's vain"
Some Potent Spirits
AS to the rest OF the terminoiogy It Is
possible at this date to comment upon It's
apparent obscurlties with some degree OF
accuracy. Bull-beggar has been thought
to be compound OF bull and boggart.
|. G.. bogy; but there is more probability
in a Teutonic origin. In low German. the
a col Tod 20 g..
variously styled Bullermann and Butler
kater. from bullen, bullern to knock. so
Grimm says 1t il worth remark here
that Cardinal Belarmin-a caricature of
whose face still stares at us from big.
bellied Flanders jugs-the able and relent-
less antagonist OF the Reformed Church,
was styled the Pope's Bull-beggar. Kit
wi -the-canstick, quasi candlestick. is an
other name for wildhre. which received
much scientific attention about Shake
speares time. and a classical style "ignus
fatuus. In fact. the poet. when using the
Latin, IL careful to add, "or ball OF fire."
so that the unlearned among his hearers
might comprehend. This natural phenOm-
enon. invariably regarded supernatural
by the vulgar. has received many strange
denominations among others Jack o Lam
tern. Frier- with-the-rushlight. and In East
Cornwall. Joan-the-Wad wherein we see
again the same idea that expressed in
''wisp." for wad is a loose bundle OF
straw.
Calcar and Spoorn are regarded by some
authorities as personifications of spurs"
from the idea OF hagrding or nightmare.
but as Coverdale, writing in 1888. speaks
of 'Calkers of mems byrthes whereof ye
have to many" by which he means calcu-
lators of nativities. the former notion must
be regarded with some reserve. The fends
whose titles and characteristics Edgar. In
his character of Tom o. Bedlam. mentions
to Gloster. are not creations of the drama
lists fancy. In 1856 one Weston. alas
EdmOnds. seminary priest, was practicing
in England as an exorcist, and his doings
with subjects named Many, Williams. Twy-
ford, etc, were exposed in 1903 in book
very scarce now. entitled "Egregious Popsh
Impostures." This work was undoubtedly
placed under contribution by Shakespeare.
for even 1.-The voice of a nightingale" one
of the devices of the foul fend TO trouble
Poor Tom. Is set forth in it. AS for the
names, they are all there. "Frateretto,
Fliberdgibbet, Floberdidance. Torpbatto
were four devils of the round or Morrice.'
says Harsnet, who wrote the book. He
also mentions Haberdient-which the poet
THE Prince of Darkness is a gentleman:
Modo he's called and MANU." affirms Ed
gar but by metathesis the poet has made
the original Modu into Modo, and Maho
into MANU- both corrupt forms of Mahound
or Mahomet who, with ''Termagaunt,"
regarded by the Crusaders a god of the
Saracens, soon corrupted into devils In pop
ular belief. so help me God SO bright"
says the sultan In the old romance of SyI
GUY,