Fatae

These fairies of Italy may have been personifications of fortune and have been confused with witches. They appear in a household soon after a birth, and bestow gifts upon the child. If the family is pleasant, the child would receive good qualities, if not, they might bestow a taboo or embargo upon the child for life, and the family might find itself afflicted with baldness, deafness, rheumatism, or suchlike ailments. Every fifth year they were to appear before the Demogorgon at his temple in the Himalayas, and traveled there through the air in various strange conveyances. There were two classes of them; one beneficent and protective, looking after heroes and maidens, and the other seductive and injurious. Fatae sometimes appeared as snakes, and have also been called Magae or Incantrices.