Liber de Nymphis, Sylphis, Pygmaeis et Salamandris et de Caeteris Spiritibus

Liber de Nymphis, Sylphis, Pygmaeis et Salamandris is the sixteenth century physician and alchemist Paracelsus's own treatise, the original source of the now familiar four-elemental scheme of nature spirits, salamanders of fire, undines or nymphs of water, sylphs of air and gnomes or pygmies of earth. As Paracelsus's own text it is the correct primary source for this classification in the words of the figure who actually proposed it, rather than a later esoteric restatement. Its limit is bibliographic rather than doctrinal, it was written in the 1530s but published only posthumously through a tangled and disputed printing history, which is why no publisher or year is recorded here rather than guessed at, so a claim resting on a specific edition's wording should note which printing it draws from.