The Kabbalists say that when a man falls in love with a female elemental—
undine, sylph, gnome, or salamandrine, as the case may be—she becomes
immortal with him, or otherwise he dies with her. . . . The love of the
magus for such beings is insensate, and may destroy him.—Z/iphas Levi.
Orpheus for the love he bare to his wife, snatcht, as it were, from him by
untimely Death, resolved to go down to Hell with his harp, to try if he might
obtain her of the infernal power.—
Zhe Wisdom of the Anctents,