The Tradition of Household Spirits Quotes

“In the Hautes-Alpes region, it was still believed in 1962 that witches often assumed animal form and entered houses through the chimneys, keyholes, or cat doors. When in the form of a cat, it would sit on the chests of those who were sleeping and press down on them, preventing their breathing.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Tradition of Household Spirits: Ancestral Lore and Practices

“a charming Estonian belief: “Thunder occurs when God, who is chasing the devil, catches and pulverizes him. Doors and windows are therefore shut during storms to deny the devil refuge in the house and prevent the latter from being struck by lightning.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Tradition of Household Spirits: Ancestral Lore and Practices

“in Switzerland, it is said that “witches can slip inside through the keyhole” (Häxa chönid dör-ena schlüselloch döra schlüffa).”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Tradition of Household Spirits: Ancestral Lore and Practices

“All that remains is for me to make a sad observation. Like so many other creatures that once embellished life and brought hope, house spirits have vanished and with them the souls of our houses have fled, never to return. Homes have sunk into anonymity; building rituals have almost entirely disappeared; prefabricated industrial materials have replaced the quest for attentive selection of materials that were wrought with love; the meaning of ornaments are no longer known and the moon, sun, stars and crosses have disappeared from our facades; radiators have replaced the hearth and stove; our corners have become little more than dust collectors; and there is no longer anything concealed beneath our thresholds. We have transformed into rootless wanderers with no fire or place to call our own. The individual no longer has any attachment to a house that has been passed down for generations. In loosing all of this, we have lost a piece of ourselves, one of our most solid anchors, and like dead leaves carried by the wind, we settle one day here, another day there, driven by the whims of our professions, but we no longer bring the embers from our hearths with us, and the surviving spirits weep in abandoned houses.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Tradition of Household Spirits: Ancestral Lore and Practices

“Among the Balkan Slavs, demons called karakondzul try to enter houses through their chimneys at certain times”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Tradition of Household Spirits: Ancestral Lore and Practices

“According to one legend, Ghengis Khan’s ancestor was born from the sexual relations of his mother with a divine being who entered the tent through the smoke hole via a trail of light that entered her belly.”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Tradition of Household Spirits: Ancestral Lore and Practices

“Jacob Grimm notes that “someone who wants to say something and then forgets what he intended to say, should go over the threshold then return, it will come back to him.”61 Might this not be a plunge back into the protective sphere where one enjoys the aid of the invisibles?”
― Claude Lecouteux, The Tradition of Household Spirits: Ancestral Lore and Practices