Demonology and Devil-lore Part 58

O woe betide that evil day On which this witless wight was born, Who drew the sword--the garter cut, But never blew the bugle horn.

Terror brought on loss of memory, and the shepherd was unable to give any correct account of his adventure, or to find again the entrance to the enchanted hall.--Hodgson's 'Northumberland.'

[187] This great discussion between the animals and sages is given in 'The Sacred Anthology' (London: Trubner & Co. New York: Henry Holt & Co.). It is a very ancient story, and was probably written down at the beginning of the christian era.

[188] It is a strange proof of the ignorance concerning Hindu religion that Jugernath, raised in a sense for reprobation of cruelty to man and beast, should have been made by a missionary myth a Western proverb for human sacrifices!

[189] St. Olaf = Stooley = Tooley.

[190] High bloweth Heimdall His horn aloft; Odin consulteth Mimir's head; The old ash yet standing Yggdrasill To its summit is shaken, And loose breaks the giant.--Voluspa.

[191] 'Rigveda,' x. 99.

[192] 'Zoolog. Myth.,' ii. 8, 10, &c.

[193] 'The Mahawanso.' Translated by the Hon. George Turnour, Ceylon, 1836, p. 69.

[194] It was an ancient custom to offer a stag on the high altar of Durham Abbey, the sacrifice being accompanied with winding of horns, on Holy Rood Day, which suggests a form of propitiating the Wild Huntsman in the hunting season. On the Cheviot Hills there is a chasm called Hen Hole, 'in which there is frequently seen a snow egg at Midsummer, and it is related that a party of hunters, while chasing a roe, were beguiled into it by fairies, and could never again find their way out.'--Richardson's 'Borderer's Table-Book,' vi 400. The Bridled Devil of Durham Cathedral may be an allusion to the Wild Huntsman.

[195] In the pre-petrified era of Theology this hope appears to have visited the minds of some, Origen for instance. But by many centuries of utilisation the Devil became so essential to the throne of Christianity that theologians were more ready to spare G.o.d from their system than Satan. 'Even the clever Madame de Stael,'

said Goethe, 'was greatly scandalised that I kept the Devil in such good-humour. In the presence of G.o.d the Father, she insisted upon it, he ought to be more grim and spiteful. What will she say if she sees him promoted a step higher,--nay, perhaps, meets him in heaven?' Though, in another conversation with Falk, Goethe intimates that he had written a pa.s.sage 'where the Devil himself receives grace and mercy from G.o.d,' the artistic theory of his poem could permit no nearer approach to this than those closing lines (Faust, II.) in which Mephistopheles reproaches the 'case-hardened Devil' and himself for their mismanagement. To the isolated, the not yet humanised, intellect sensuality is evil when senseless, and its h.e.l.l is folly.

[196] 'Demonialite,' 60-62, &c. We may hope that this learned man, during his tenure of office under the Inquisition, had some mercy for the poor devils dragged before that tribunal.

[197] 'Reverberations.' By W. M. W. Call, M.A., Cambridge. Second Edition. Trubner & Co., 1876.

[198] The Holy Grail was believed to have been fas.h.i.+oned from the largest of all diamonds, lost from the crown of Satan as he fell from Heaven. Guarded by angels until used at the Last Supper, it was ultimately secured by Arthur's knight, Percival, and--such is the irony of mythology--indirectly by the aid of Satan's own son, Merlin!

[199] See Mr. J. A. Froude's article in 'Fraser's Magazine,' Feb. 1878, 'Origen and Celsus.'

[200] Mr. W. W. Lloyd's 'Age of Pericles,' vol. ii. p. 202.

[201] Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the R. A. S., 1865-6: Art. on 'Demonology and Witchcraft in Ceylon,' by Dundris de Silva Gooneratne Modliar.

[202] Euripides, 'Medea,' 574.

[203] 'Paradise Lost,' x. 860.

[204] Herodotus, 'Clio,' 7-14, 91.

[205] 'Expression of the Emotions.' By Charles Darwin. London: Murray, 1872. Chapter IV.

[206] The giving of Eve's name to Noah's wife is not the only significant thing about this Russian tradition and its picture. Long-bearded devils are nowhere normal except in the representations by the Eastern Church of the monarch of h.e.l.l. By referring to p. 253 of this volume the reader will observe the influences which caused the infernal king to be represented as counterpart of the Deity. As this tradition about Noah's wife is suggestive of a Gnostic origin, it really looks as if the Devil in it were meant to act the part which the Gnostics ascribed to Jehovah himself (vol. ii. p. 207). The Devil is said in rabbinical legends to have seduced the wives of Noah's sons; this legend seems to show that his aim was to populate the post-diluvial world entirely with his own progeny, in this being an Ildabaoth, or degraded edition of Jehovah trying to establish his own family in the earth by the various means related in vol. i. chap. 8.

[207] 'Nischamath Chajim,' fol. 139, col. 2.