Every Elemental Spirit in Ancient Mythology Explained in 29 Minutes

Every Elemental Spirit in Ancient Mythology Explained in 29 Minutes The salamander is the spirit of fire in European alchemical tradition, and its legend is older than the science that eventually replaced it. The Swiss physician Paracelsus formalized it in his 1566 work "Liber de Nymphis," designating the salamander as the elemental being that inhabits fire the way fish inhabit water — completely at home in it, unharmed by it, inseparable from it. This was not a new idea. Pliny the Elder had already written in his Natural History that the salamander was so cold-blooded it could extinguish flame simply by touching it.