Cambions

views updated

Cambions

According to Jean Bodin and Pierre De Lancre, the offspring of incubi and succubi. Some of these demons are said to be more kindly disposed to the human race than others. Luther says in his Colloquies that they show no sign of life before seven years of age. He further states that he saw one that cried when he touched it.

In his Discours des Sorciers (1608), Henri Boguet quotes a story that a Galician mendicant was in the habit of exciting public pity by carrying about a Cambion. One day a horseman, observing him to be much hampered by the seeming infant in crossing a river, took the "child" before him on his horse. But the "child" was so heavy that the animal sank under the weight. The mendicant later admitted that the child he habitually carried was a little demon he had trained so carefully that no one refused him alms when he carried it.

More From encyclopedia.com