Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/513

Rh their respective operations on the four temperaments of the human body."—.

Many strange stories are related of spirits; among others, let the reader take the following. A young and beautiful girl, of a noble Scottish family, consorted with a spirit, who was discovered in her bed. The clamour flies abroad, the neighbours come in to be spectators of the wonderment, and amongst them the parson of the parish, who was a scholar, and a man of unblemished life and conversation: who seeing this prodigious spectacle, broke out into these words of St. John the Evangelist, Et verbum caro factum est And the Word was made flesh: which was no sooner spoke, but the devil arose, and suddenly vanished in a terrible storme, carrying with him the roofe of the chamber, and setting fire on the bed wherein he had lien, which was in a moment burned to ashes. Shee was within three days after delivered of a monster, such as the father appeared unto them, of so odible an aspect, that the mid wives caused it instantly to be burnt, lest the infamy of the daughter might too