Dusios

Although the Celtic Dusios is not described in late-antique sources independently of Greek and Roman deities, the common functionality of the others lay in their ability to impregnate animals and women, often by surprise or force.

[7] Saint Augustine mentions the dusii in a passage criticizing the belief that early in the history of humanity angels could have bodily intercourse with mortal women, begetting the race of giants or heroes.

Augustine redefines traditional beliefs within a Christian framework, and in this passage makes no firm distinction between the essential nature of angels and demons:[8] One often hears talk, the reliability of which must not be doubted, since it is confirmed by a number of people who know from their own or others' experience, that Silvani and Pans, commonly called incubi, have often appeared to women as wicked men, trying to sleep with them and succeeding.

[9] Isidore of Seville echoes Augustine closely, but expands the identifications with other divine figures: The 'hairy ones' (pilosi)[10] are called in Greek Pans, in Latin Incubi, or Inui from their entry (ineundo) with animals everywhere.

His vita records a belief among his fellow Picards in northern Gaul that the dusi, called maones in some recensions, steal crops and damage orchards.

Isidore offers a clue when he says the manes are gods of the dead, but their power is located between the Moon and the Earth, the same cloud region through which the Magonians traveled.

[33] This airborne existence recalls Augustine's characterization of the Dusii as "aerial in substance," and points toward the Arthurian "histories" involving incubi daemones, "creatures who mingle the angelic and the demonic, inhabiting the uncertain space between sun and moon."

Medieval romance narratives suggest that women fantasize about these sexual encounters, though a visitation is likely to be represented by male authors as frightening, violent, and diabolic.

[39] The dusios merges later with the concept of the wild man; as late as the 13th century, Thomas Cantipratensis claimed dusii were still an active part of cult practice and belief.

"[41] In the 17th century, Johannes Praetorius rather wildly conjectured that dusios ought to be drusios, connected to the god Silvanus and the woodlands and to the word "druid.