Much of this material survives under the collective name of Apocrypha - from the Greek apokryphos, "hidden secret" - under which name it was commonly included as an appendix in Bibles up to about the year 1600. We are fortunate that it does, as it is not only fascinating work of great antiquity but reflects traditions far older than itself.

It is within the Apocrypha, notably the two Books of Enoch (not to be confused with the Liber Logaeth of Dr. John Dee, sometimes called by that name, about which more later) and the Book of Jubilees, that we find the full legend of the “Watchers” and the “Nephilim”, banished by fearful and bigoted Church Fathers from the Bible in use today.

The Apocryphal books tell us this: Originally the angels, or Sons of God, all surveyed the world and its beings from on high, and among them were those called the “Igigi” (Grigori) or “Watchers”.

There were, we're told, no female Watchers.

Whatever their motive, two hundred of the Watchers, led by the great angel Semjaza-Azazel, (Anu), defied divine direction, descended to Earth and took a personal hand in humankind's creation and education.

Crafts and sciences, arts and letters, and the many skills of magic - all of which are described as "secrets...made in heaven", intended only for the Celestials to know - were shared with our distant ancestors.

"And Azazel taught men to make swords and daggers and shields and breastplates...bracelets, and ornaments, mining and the metals of the earth, and the art of making up the eyes and beautifying the eyelids  (angels invent eye shadow).

Amezarak taught all those who cast spells and cut roots: Armaros the release of charms, spells, and magical skills; Baraqiel, astrology...Asradel, the path of the moon...

Penemue: this one showed the sons of men the bitter and the sweet; he taught men the art of writing with ink and paper, and through this many have gone astray.  " Even reproductive choice was granted: "Kasdeyae: this one showed the sons of men the blows which attack the embryo in the womb so that it miscarries."

This was of course the birth of the Nephilim, sometimes called Naphalim or Naphidim, the "giants in the earth" of Genesis: "a monstrous race of giants with spiritual powers and earthly appetites".

Some were indeed heroes, like the Biblical "mighty hunter before the Lord," Nimrod. Others were less noble. From I Enoch: "And they [the Watchers] took wives to themselves... and they taught them charms and spells...and [their wives] became pregnant and bore large giants.

These devoured all the toil of men, until men were unable to sustain them.

“And the giants turned against them in order to devour men, and they began to sin against birds and against animals...and they devoured one another's flesh and drank the blood from it. Then the earth complained against the lawless ones."

The Aramaic Greek translation complicates matters further: "And they bore to them three kinds: first large giants, and to the giants were born the Nephilim, and the Nephilim begot the Elioud. And they grew according to their greatness, and they taught themselves and their wives charms and spells."

Jubilees agrees, adding that "They were all unalike..  " Thus we can imagine three successive generations of angel-progeny co-existing on the earth, all skilled in magical arts and all apparently peaceable - at least for a time.

This correlates with traditions quoted by Davidson and Huson that the Nephilim - not the Watchers - can be credited with works as diverse as the forging, in Beowulf, of King Hrothgar's magical sword, and the building of the Tower of Babel; if the Nephilim existed long enough to master some creative arts,  they also had time to reproduce.

Sadly, it was not to last: Jubilees goes on to say, "and they devoured each other;  the giant killed the Naphil, the Naphil killed the Eljo [Elioud], and the Eljo humankind, and one man another man."

The loyal archangels Michael, Gabriel, Sariel and Uriel, who had not followed Azazel and were still faithfully observing Earthly affairs, saw all this and protested to God. It's highly interesting to note the tone of their complaint.

"See then what Azazel has done," they say ( I Enoch IX), "how he has taught all iniquity on the earth, and revealed the eternal secrets which were made in heaven...and has made known spells, and has brought knowledge to men...and the sons of men practice his practices in order to know the secrets..."

This is not simple righteous wrath toward violence and sorcery;  these things were private property, and the archangels are jealously angry at their revelation to mankind.

I Enoch (LXV:6-7, quoting the even more ancient Book of Noah) is explicit: "...they (humans) have learnt all the secrets of the angels (Anunnaki) and all their secret power, and all the power of those who practice magic arts, and the power of enchantments and...of those who cast molten images for all the earth..."

Could this be one reason for the suppression of the Apocrypha? The chance that no condemnation of divination, astrology, spells, etc., as Devil-inspired would stand if these chapters, plainly claiming them as heavenly lore, remained in the Old Testament?

The whole history of the Middle Ages might have been different... maybe. More likely, of course, it would have been asserted that the gift of heaven's wisdom was corrupted and diabolized by the givers' rebellion.

But it was the unauthorized act of revelation that outraged the archangels, and it was that act which God punished. "I shall restore the Earth, so that not all the sons of men shall be destroyed through the mystery which the Watchers made known.

"Divinely commanded, the obedient Watchers swept down and defeated their brothers, whose punishment was to watch the death of their children before being themselves imprisoned in the mountains and deserts of the Earth until Judgment Day, when they will be cast into the lake of eternal fire.

(Azazel is the only Watcher whose burial place is believed to be known: under a heap of stones at the foot of the cliff of Haradan, in what is now the Sinai, where, regarded as a demon, he received every year the scapegoat driven into the desert with its burden of Israel's sins. Alternately, he is sometimes said to have hurled himself into the sky and become the constellation Orion.)