Note 68 — Chapter XV
Reading edition
On these words of Shakespear, "Kept by a Devil," (King Henry VI., Part II., Act 4, and Scene 3,) Steevens makes the following annotation:—"It was anciently supposed, and is still a vulgar superstition of the East, that mines, containing precious metals, were guarded by evil spirits." So in Certaine Secrete Wonders of Nature, by Edward Fenton, 1569, "There appeare at this day many strange visions and wicked spirites in the metal mines of the Greate Turke. In the mine at Anneburg was a metal sprite which killed twelve workmen; the same causing the rest to forsake the myne, albeit it was very riche."