Coventina: The Abrahamic Inversion

Crocell is the name the grimoires put in place of Coventina, Goddess of the sacred springs. It was coined as slander against the Original Gods, and no God is to be invoked by a name of slander. Approach Her as Coventina, by Her legitimate and eternal name.

The name Crocell (or Procel) is much older than its current spelling. The first available reference to the name, although spelled differently, is found in the book Livre des Esperitz, a manuscript located at Cambridge University conventionally dated to the 16th century but encompassing documents dating from the 14th. The section of the book dealing with the Duke named Pucel describes him as being in the form of an angel who provides truthful responses to questions posed and creates impossible or illusionary aerial waters and abysses. Later in the book, another Dduke named Bucal is referred to. According to Jean-Patrice Boudet, a scholar specializing in demonology, Boudet established that the two names were referring to the same entity, and that Boudel identified the French spelling "Bucal" with Weyer's "Pucel".^1,2

Bucal eſt ung grãt duc q̃ aꝑt en guyſe dange et done vroye reſpõce de ce q̃ on luy demande et faict aꝑoir grandes eaues et abyſmes en lair ꝯbien quilz ny ſoint point Et a xxviii legions

The text says that Bucal is a great duke who appears in the guise of an angel, gives true answers concerning what is asked of him, and makes great waters and abysses appear in the air, though they are not there. He commands twenty-eight legions. Already, this is connected to the myth of the spring goddess and the crocodile.^1,2

Johann Weyer published the first secure printed Latin spelling of the name in 1577 as Pucel in his book Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, which was attached to the fifth edition of De Praestigiis Daemonum. Weyer preserved both the status as Duke and the angelic appearance.

However, Weyer extended the scope of the office significantly. Weyer writes that Pucel is a "great and strong duke", his angelic appearance is described as "very dark," he is said to reveal hidden truths, he teaches geometry and all liberal arts, he creates deafening sounds and the sound of flowing waters where there are none, he heats water, he disfigures or "distempereth" baths used for regaining good health at specific times, he claims to have originally been part of the Order of powers and he controls Forty-Eight Legions.³

Pucel Dux magnus & fortis, apparet in specie angelica, sed obscura valde: loquitur de occultis: docet Geometriam & omnes artes liberales: sonitus facit ingentes, & sonare aquas ubi non sunt, easdem & calefacit & harum balnea recuperandæ sanitati servientia certis temporibus, distemperat jussu exorcistæ. Fuit de ordine Potestatum, habetque in sua potestate legiones quadragintaocto.

The development from the French text is therefore unusually visible. The earlier Bucal merely produces impossible waters and abysses in the air; Weyer turns this into a complex acoustic and thermal water-office of geometry. The connection to crodociles and their warm waters is established, so is the value of sacred sound, the thermal baths of Sulis, and the geometry of the triangle.^1,2,3

Reginald Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft gives the name as Procell. His paragraph is substantially a translation of Weyer..⁴

Procell is a great and a strong duke, appearing in the shape of an angell, but speaketh verie darklie of things hidden, he teacheth geometrie and all the liberall arts, he maketh great noises, and causeth the waters to rore, where are none, he warmeth waters, and distempereth bathes at certeine times, as the exorcist appointeth him, he was of the order of potestats, and hath fourtie eight legions under his power.

The spelling Procell is therefore an English development from Weyer’s Pucel. Because Latin procella can mean a storm or violent weather, the spelling has sometimes invited an etymological association with turbulent water. Possibly Scot was working from a different name, but it may be related to Bucal and the prior ones also.^1,3,4

After this, the seventeenth-century Ars Goetia incorporates the spirit as number forty-nine. In British Library Sloane MS 3825 the name is Procel. Like most of the Ars Goetia, it adds the seal element worn by the one invocating the spirit.⁵

In the angelological system attributed to Dr. Thomas Rudd, the seventy-two Goetic spirits are placed against the seventy-two angels of the Shem-ha-Mephorash. As spirit forty-nine, Crocell or Procel is paired with the forty-ninth angel Vehuel.”^6,7

The verse is Psalm 145:3 in modern English and Hebrew numbering: Magnus Dominus et laudabilis nimis et magnitudinis ejus non est finis (“Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable.”).^7,8,9

Lazare-Républicain Lenain established the fullest nineteenth-century practical profile of Vehuel in 1823. He calls the angel's attribute Dieu grand et élevé, “God great and exalted,” associates Vehuel with the divine name Mara according to the language of the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands, and assigns the ray from the 241st through the 245th degree. Vehuel corresponds to the twenty-fifth decan and the genius Reno under Mercury; the daily period is four o'clock until four-twenty in the afternoon.⁸

He also says Vehuel acts against sorrows and contrarieties of spirit and serves for exaltation toward God, blessing and glorifying the divine. He governs great persons and those distinguished by talent and virtue. A person born under the influence is sensitive and generous and is expected to distinguish himself in literature, jurisprudence and diplomacy. The contrary genius rules selfish men, hatred and hypocrisy.^8,9

Collin de Plancy still uses the older name Pucel in the 1863 edition of the Dictionnaire infernal¹⁰

Crocell

The now-familiar printed form Crocell, establishing any continuity with the crocodile (possibly through partially correct communication), actually occurs in Crowley's text on the Goetia. This is now more or less the standard version of the demon's name. The Mathers and Crowley compendium also changes a significant detail in that Crocell now discovers baths instead of 'distempering them', establishing a true connection to the city of Bath too.¹¹