was best to be provided with amulets blessed by the holy fathers of St.
Augustine. Such demons stole on the hunter at noonday, and, alarmed at
the sudden appearance, upon turning his head (for demons invariably
approach from behind, and their presence is indicated by a shudder in
the back), he toppled into pits hidden by fern, and was killed.

Or, in the shape of a dog, they ran between the traveller's legs; or as
woman, with tempting caresses, lured him from the way at nightfall into
the leafy recesses, and then instantaneously changing into vast bat-like
forms, fastened on his throat and sucked his blood. The terrible screams
of such victims had often been heard by the warders at the outposts.
Some were invisible, and yet slew the unwary by descending unseen upon
him, and choking him with a pressure as if the air had suddenly become
heavy.

But none of these were, perhaps, so much to be dreaded as the
sweetly-formed and graceful ladies of the fern. These were creatures,
not of flesh and blood, and yet not incorporeal like the demons, nor
were they dangerous to the physical man, doing no bodily injury. The
harm they did was by fascinating the soul so that it revolted from all
religion and all the rites of the Church. Once resigned to the caress of
the fern-woman, the unfortunate was lured farther and farther from the
haunts of men, until at last he wandered into the unknown forest, and
was never seen again. These creatures were usually found among the brake
fern, nude, but the lower limbs and body hidden by the green fronds,
their white arms and shoulders alone visible, and their golden hair
aglow with the summer sunshine.

Demons there were, too, of the streams, and demons dwelling in the midst
of the hills; demons that could travel only in the moonbeams, and others