Bottle Imps

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Bottle Imps

A class of German spirits similar in many ways to familiars. The following is a paraphrase of the prescription in an old manuscript in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, England (MS. Ashmole 1406), for the purpose of securing one of these fairies:

"First, take a broad square crystal or Venetian glass, about three inches in breadth and length. Lay it in the blood of a white hen on three Wednesdays or three Fridays. Then take it and wash it with holy water and fumigate it. Then take three hazel sticks a year old; take the bark off them; make them long enough to write on them the name of the fairy or spirit whom you may desire three times on each stick, which must be flat on one side. Bury them under some hill haunted by fairies on the Wednesday before you call her; and on the Friday following dig them out, and call her at eight, or three, or ten o'clock, which are good times for this purpose. In order to do so successfully one must be pure, and face toward the East. When you get her, tie her to the glass."