Halphas

Halphas appears in the corpus of Renaissance and early modern grimoire material cataloguing spirits for ritual magic (notably the Ars Goetia / Lesser Key of Solomon tradition and related demonological works). These texts record Halphas as an office within an infernal hierarchy — an earl who commands 26 legions — but they do not provide a mythic birth narrative or folkloric life‑story. Later demonological compilations (e.g., Weyer, Collin de Plancy) reproduce or variantly describe the figure; modern editions and commentators (e.g., Skinner & Rankine) annotate the entry with correspondences such as an opposing Shemhamphorasch angel.

Goetic manuscripts most commonly depict Halphas in avian form: "a hoarse‑voiced stock dove" in most manuscripts, while some authorities (Johann Weyer and Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal) describe him as a stork. Sources thus record two distinct avian images as manuscript variants. The vocal quality "hoarse‑voiced" is specifically noted in the Goetic descriptions.

Canonical Goetic attributes assign Halphas military and logistical functions: supplying weapons and ammunition for towers (rendered as "towns" or "villes" in some manuscript variants), sending men to war, and commanding 26 legions of spirits. Modern usages of the name in music, gaming and fiction draw on this martial/infernal resonance but do not contribute additional canonical powers in the provided sources. Skinner & Rankine record that the Shemhamphorasch angel Haamiah opposes Halphas in angelic correspondence systems.