Angels and men, who assume at pleasure the form of men, of the lower animals, or any monstrous shape, and…
- Date of account
- Published 1865
- Source
- The Superstitions of Witchcraft
- Reference
- The Superstitions of Witchcraft · selected passage 56
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
angels and men, who assume at pleasure the form of men, of the lower animals, or any monstrous shape, and propagate their species like, and sometimes with, human kind--appear in imposing proportions in 'The Thousand and One Nights'--that rich display of the fancy of the Oriental imagination.[54] Credulous and confused …
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyangels and men, who assume at pleasure the form of men, of the lower animals, or any monstrous shape, and propagate their species like, and sometimes with, human kind--appear in imposing proportions in 'The Thousand and One Nights'--that rich display of the fancy of the Oriental imagination.[54] Credulous and confused in critical perception, the crusading adventurers for religion or rapine could scarcely fail to confound with their own the peculiar tenets of an ill-understood mode of thought; and that the critical and discriminating faculties of the champions of the Cross were not of the highest order, is illustrated by their difficulty in distinguishing the eminently unitarian religion of Mohammed from paganism. By a strange perversion the Anglo-Norman and French chroniclers term the Moslems _Pagans_, while the Saxon heathen are dignified by the title of _Saracens_; and the names of Mahmoud, Termagaunt, Apollo, could be confounded without any sense of impropriety.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis is a historical account assembled under the reporting and publishing conventions of its period. It may preserve testimony, hearsay, retelling and editorial interpretation together.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyA modern comparison can identify recurring descriptions and possible explanations, but the account is not treated as independently verified evidence merely because it appeared in print.
Investigate related details with Anomaly Graph’s account-based search, or read how matching and provenance work.