Shax’s promises have unusual limits. Royal money returns after 1,200 years, hidden things must not be guarded by wicked spirits, and familiars are supplied only sometimes; outside the triangle, the subtle-voiced bird lies. [1]
Removing sight, hearing or understanding, taking royal money, fetching horses or other things, revealing hidden things not kept by wicked spirits, and sometimes giving familiars. [1]
Shax appears as a stock-dove, with a voice both hoarse and subtle. He removes a man’s or woman’s sight, hearing or understanding at command, steals money from kings’ houses and carries it back after 1,200 years. He can also fetch horses or other things when requested. [1]
Before these dealings he must be commanded into a triangle; otherwise he deceives the caller and tells many lies. His discovery of hidden things excludes those kept by wicked spirits. Good familiars are given only sometimes. Thirty legions are under the great marquis. [1]
Scox’s stork and uncertain familiars
Scot’s Shax or Scox is a stork rather than a stock-dove. He calls the fetching of horses horse-stealing and says the promised familiars are accepted if they are not deceivers. His conditional promise of obedience, like the later triangle clause, is followed by a warning that the spirit otherwise lies. [1][2]
S. L. MacGregor Mathers, translated; Aleister Crowley, edited, The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King (1904), first-edition facsimile supplied by Keep Silence. Shemhamphorash, entry 44, Shax/Shaz/Shass; printed p. 24, PDF p. 21
Reginald Scot (1584); Brinsley Nicholson’s reprint of the first edition (1886), Project Gutenberg transcription. Book XV, chapter II, Shax; 1886 reprint p. 322.
