Month of Spooks #1 - Il spirito del scaldino

Women in Northern Italy used to carry a scaldino, a little earthenware pot containing charcoal and ashes, under their garments to warm themselves during the cold winter months.

In the Etruscan regions it was said that the fumes of these little stoves would impregnate the women and result in them unwittingly bearing and birthing an aerial spirit.

To see their supernatural offspring a woman would have to sing a chant:

Spirit! Spirit! Spirit!
Airy Fairy Light!
Fleeter than the wind,
Thou keepest from my sight,
And from all; but now
Come unto my spell,
Truly I am one
Of all who loves thee well,
Thy mother, too, I am,
And that I may see
What my child is like,
Come, I pray, to met!  

The spirit child was said to then appear to the woman in a dream.

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source:
-Leyland, C.G., (1892) Etruscan Roman Remains in Popular Tradition; London: T.F.Unwin