History and Later Influence

Hagith entered English language readership through Robert Turner's 1655 translation of the Arbatel de magia veterum, first printed in Latin at Basel in 1575 and bound by Turner with his own edition of the pseudo Agrippa Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy. As the only one of the seven Olympic spirits the Arbatel names as female, Hagith has drawn particular attention in later popular writing about the text, sometimes discussed alongside other Venusian or beauty associated figures from unrelated grimoire and folk traditions, a comparison this atlas does not extend beyond noting the pattern exists in secondary literature.

The Arbatel itself gives no extended account of her beyond the beauty, transmutation and service offices already described, and this entry does not add detail the source does not contain. This atlas treats Hagith as belonging to the Arbatel's own distinct seven spirit system, kept separate from John Dee's Heptarchia Mystica and the Ars Goetia, two other grimoire traditions from a similar period with their own independent casts of named spirits. Later popular writing on the Arbatel has sometimes read more into Hagith's single female presence among the seven Olympic spirits than the text itself supports, and this entry limits itself to what the Arbatel actually states about her offices.