Ostium, Italy — Circa 1010
Five-year old child abducted
Peter Damian, Cardinal-Bishop of the Italian city of Ostium (1007-1072), recorded what would be regarded today as a typical abduction involving the five-year-old son of a nobleman: “One night he was carried out of the monastery into a locked mill, where he was found in the morning. And when he was questioned, he said that he had been carried by strangers to a great feast and bidden to eat; and afterwards he was put into the mill through the roof.” What we see here is an early instance of a thread that will become increasingly important as the chronology develops, focusing on alleged interaction between human witnesses and creatures of another order. While a simplistic Christian interpretation classifies them as “demons,” more sophisticated scholars recognized they did not fit easily within the biblical definitions of good and evil. In the Moslem world they would be recognized as the Djinni. In the later medieval world they will become the Fairies, the elves, the Elementals of the Alchemical tradition, the “Good Neighbors” of the Celtic world. The parallels are obvious between the beliefs in such beings and contemporary abduction stories made popular by television. “Great feasts” are a staple of fairy folklore. Abductees were usually “bidden to eat” when the fairies whisked them off to their hidden palaces, just as people often claim to be given pills or liquids to swallow in today’s accounts. Even being pulled, pushed or dragged through the roof has its parallel in modern UFO lore.
Source: Malleus Maleficarum, written in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, translated with an introduction, bibliography and notes by Montague Summers (London: Bracken Books, 1996), 105. The works of S. Peter Damian, which have been more than once collected, may be found in Migne, Patres Latini, CXLIV-CXLV. Case: W029