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Paracelsus -  extract from Scritti alchemici e magici (1991, ed. Phoenix).

I want to entertain you about the four species of beings of spiritual nature, that is, the Nymphs, the Pygmies, the Sylphides and the Salamanders; to these four species, to say the truth, we should add the Giants and many others.

These Beings, even if they have a human appearance, don’t descend from Adam at all… Although they couple with the man, and from this union are born individuals belonging to the human race.

……..  every creature is proper to the element in which it lives; the Undines, conceived to live underwater, are bewildered when they see us living in the air… In the same way, the Gnomes pass through the densest rocks easily, like we move through the air, because the earth is their chaos…"

… God made these Beings as sentinels to his Creation. It is thus that the Gnomes watch over the treasures of the earth, the metals and others; they prohibit them to see the light before the right time… The Salamanders watch over the treasures of the fire regions, the Sylphides watch over the treasures brought by the winds, the Undines over the treasures lying under the water. All the treasures are made by the Salamanders in the fire region, and then they’re scattered in other places