at sea resembling monks of late order in all their hoods and dresses; so
as the Roman invention of good and bad demons, and guardian angels
particularly assigned, is called by them an ignorant mistake, sprung only
from this original. They call this reflex man a co-walker, every way
like the man, as a twin brother and companion, haunting him as his
shadow, as is oft seen and known among men (resembling the original),
both before and after the original is dead; and was often seen of old to
enter a house, by which the people knew that the person of that likeness
was to visit them within a few days. This copy, echo, or living picture,
goes at last to his own herd. It accompanied that person so long and
frequently for ends best known to itself, whether to guard him from the
secret assaults of some of its own folk, or only as a sportful ape to
counterfeit all his actions. However, the stories of old witches prove
beyond contradiction that all sorts of people, spirits which assume light
airy bodies, or crazed bodies coacted by foreign spirits, seem to have
some pleasure (at least to assuage some pain or melancholy) by frisking
and capering like satyrs, or whistling and screeching (like unlucky
birds) in their unhallowed synagogues and Sabbaths. If invited and
earnestly required, these companions make themselves known and familiar
to men; otherwise, being in a different state and element, they neither
can nor will easily converse with them. They avouch that a _heluo_ or
great eater has a voracious elve to be his attender, called a joint-eater
or just-halver, feeding on the pith and quintessence of what the man
eats; and that, therefore, he continues lean like a hawk or heron,
notwithstanding his devouring appetite; yet it would seem they convey
that substance elsewhere, for these subterraneans eat but little in their
dwellings, their food being exactly clean, and served up by pleasant
children, like enchanted puppets.

Their houses are called large and fair, and (unless at some odd