Chapter 33

Incomparably older and more widely diffused is the manifestation of the Devil as a snake, worm, or dragon. The serpent that beguiled in Paradise was taken for the Devil himself. Beside antiquus hostis, he is antiquus anguis, anguifer hostis, letifer anguis, serpens (Greg. M. opp. 1, 111. Jonas Bobb. pp. 5. 15. Vita Burgundofarae p. 427. Vita S. Romani p. 743), serpens antiquus, Caes. Heisterb. 7, 35, the old dragon, AS. draca, El. 765. The belief is founded chiefly on Rev. 20, 2 and on the interpretations the Fathers gave of Leviathan. A dragon is mentioned in Rev. 12, 4, who with his tail drew the third part of the stars from heaven.(29) It is in this Biblical sense that our old poets call the Devil slange, hellewurm, Lohengr. 141, helletracke, Mart. 141d; but there also went with it an inkling of the native superstition about venomous fire-spitting worms, treasure-guarding dragons (p. 978) and wonderful serpents (p. 684). As a dragon the Devil appears in numberless folktales, e.g. Deutsche sag. nos. 520, 858. Here I draw particular attention to that fairytale, in which it is variously the Devil, or the dragon, or the bird griffin, that has feathers plucked out of his tail in his sleep, Kinderm. nos. 29. 57. 165. Norske folkev. 1, 31-33. Mailath's Magyar. m. 1, 179. The dragon of misfortune dogs mankind, and one whom everything goes against will say, 'On all my luck the Devil puts his tail.' To the dragon also may be traced the Devil's wings, O. Fr. diables enpanez, Méon's Nouv. réc. 1, 250, like angres enpanez 1, 272. When the church represented Leviathan as an enormous whale, whose cheek Christ pierced with his hook (Greg. M. 1, 110; conf. supra p. 182), that was an echo of the huge hostile world-serpent whom Thôrr fished up from the bottom of the sea (p. 689). As snake or dragon, the Devil has enormous jaws and throat (MHG. kêwen, Ms. 2, 166b), like hell itself (pp. 314. 806-7. 996).

Fly-shape. The LXX translates Baal-zebub, the name of the god of Ekron, by Baal muia, fly-god (2 Kings 1, 2). Ahriman in the shape of a fly pervaded all nature. Lith. mussû birbiks, fly-god (Mielke 231), birbiks usu. blowing, buzzing. Fairytales have diabolic spirits imprisoned in phials as flies. (30) Loki turns into a fly (fluga), when he wants to defraud Freyja of the brîsînga-men. Connect with this a Lombard story in Paul Diac. 6, 6 of the 'malignus spiritus' who settles on the window as a fly, and gets a leg chopped off; and in Acta Bened. sect. 1, p. 238 of a devil being cast out: 'in muscae similitudinem prorumpens cum sanguine de naribus egressus est inimicus.' As a fly, Loki finds his way into locked rooms through the keyhole, he can slip even through a needle's eye (Norske folkev. no. 31), which puts me in mind of his insinuating mother (p. 246). The Devil, like the giant (p. 555), has the power to make himself great or small, N. folkev. 1, 134. 192. Of the elvish nature of butterflies, which as psyches (p. 829) may be spirits of good or evil, we have more to say in the sequel. When stagbeetles and dungbeetles are taken as devils, it gives assurance of a heathen point of view (see Suppl.).

But also, and that from early times, the Devil has been likened to two implements, the hammer and the bolt, in which I have pointed out (pp. 180. 243) the reference to heathen gods. We have still to consider here what countenance they receive from the Bible or the Church. Malleus is reckoned among names of the Devil already in Jerome's epistle to pope Damasus (366-384), where he expounds the parable of the prodigal son; Jerome may have picked up the expression from heathens in Dalmatia, Italy or Gaul; and he had been on the Rhine. Greg. M. (d. 603) opp. 1, 1125): 'in scriptura sacra mallei nomine aliquando diabolus designatur, per quem delinquentium culpae feriuntur, aliquando vero percussio coelestis accipitur......nam quia in appellatione mallei antiquus hostis exprimitur, propheta testatur, dicens: quomodo confractus est et contritus malleus universae terrae!' (Jerem. 50, 23. conf. 51, 20). The two notions of a chastising God and of a hostile heathen power seem here to meet. In Donar's hand the hammer was at once a consecrating and a crushing tool: stormwind, whirlwind, phenomena which old heathenism ascribed to the lord of thunder, and later superstition to giants or devils (p. 635-6. Superst. I, 522, and Esth. 100), are in some parts of Germany called hammer, either from their violent destructive action, or because the Devil is imagined to have stirred them up. (31) In Rhenish Westphalia, when the wind suddenly throws the doors open, or whistles through the house by fits, they say: 'do es der aul van terjohren!' there goes the old one of last year, you know who, we need not mention names. As the name hamer for devil never occurs to my knowledge in poets of the Mid. Ages, I hesitate to derive those imprecations of the vulgar (p. 181-2) from the malleus of the Fathers; I would rather believe in an original connexion between the heathen and Jewish beliefs. And the same might be the case with riegel (bolt): vectis is not only a thing to fasten doors with, but to shove and thump with, lever, pole, almost malleus over again. Leviathan is called vectis, quia usque ad necem percutit (Greg. M. 1, 111). The MHG. hellerigel, AS. grendel (p. 243) might be an imitation of this vectis, and also have an older relation to Loki.

I think I have often noticed that the Devil unwinds himself out of a ball of yarn. One fairytale makes him roll down the mountain as a millstone, Altd. bl. 1, 297. This displays his affinity to giants, for Swedish legend tells of giants who, when frightened at Thor's lightning darting through the air, come rolling down the mountain into the meadows in various shapes, mostly as bundles of thread or balls, and seek shelter with the mowers; but these, well knowing the danger, keep them back with their scythes, and it is said to have often happened that the lightning came down and shivered the scythes, whereupon the giants with rueful moans rushed back into the mountain (Afzelius 1, 10). It recalls to my mind the windball of the demons, (32) p. 640. (see Suppl.).

From the Devil's abode in hell, whence he has dislodged the heathen goddess, are borrowed his frequent names of hellewarte (-ward), Sumerl. 7, 9. Cod. pal. 361, 71c; hellehirte, Parz. 316, 24; hellegrübel, Mart. 4b. 10b. 72b; hellewirt, Ms. 2, 175a, and the like. Lohengr. 70, calling him hellescherge (-constable), says 'er las die sîne an sich,' he gathered his own unto him, just as Wuotan receives the souls of his heroes.

His dwelling lies in the North, which at once agrees with the view explained p. 34. 'Leit î norðr (looked to N.)' occurs in the singing of a valgaldr (ferale carmen), Sæm. 94a; 'diabolus sedet in lateribus aquilonis, Greg. M. 1, 1186; he claims to rule 'on norðdœle,' Cædm. 3, 8; sets his throne nordernhalp, Diut. 3, 40. Fundgr. 2, 11: 'niðr ok norðr liggr helvegr' (p. 802). The Esthonian also shuns the north side, Superst. N, 43; and the dæmon's waterfall runs north (p. 493).

I will here insert a few terms not touched upon at p. 804, because I am not sure if they originally belonged more to Hell or to the Devil. In the old play of Theophilus, after he has sold himself to Satan, he is conducted to a castle, where it is cold, but high feasting is kept up: 'up de Ovelgunne' (ill-favour). This name, aptly expressing the envy and malice of the fiendish nature, is borne by several places in Lower Germany: an Owelgunne in the Magdeburg country, one in the Münster, near Hortsmar, and one in the Osnabrück between Witlage and Dümmersee; an Övelgunne by Werben in the Altmark, an Ovelgönne in Oldenburg, an Ovelgünne by Warburg, Paderborn country, and four or five more in L. Germany. Probably other localities have the same name, which makes one think of the equally well chosen Ubelloch (Malpertuis) in our 'Reinhart.' Whether they were so named in allusion to the Devil, or, as I rather think, to their bleak northerly aspect, is a point to be determined; in the latter case the name is fitly transferred to the Devil's dwellingplace, which is directly opposed to heaven's blessed and blissful hall of joy (p. 820).---Again, they say in L. Saxony: 'na Hekelvelde varen,' fare to H., Sam. Meiger ccciiia; in Denmark: 'gaa du dig til Häkkenfeldt!' Lyngbye's Fär. qv. p. 549. Thiele 3, 71 spells it 'til Hekkenfjälds'; what if the allusion be to Hakelberg, Hakelbernd (p. 923)? Veld is not our feld, but the ON. fiall (fell, mons), as the Dan. fjäld shews; and Hakelberg may be the furious hunter's and therefore the Devil's abode, nay, it is evidently Mount Hekla in Iceland, sometimes called Heklufiall, a rendezvous of witches; and Fischart Garg. 119b calls it Heckelburg. Hekla itself is apparently named from the shape of the cloak or cowl (cucullus), as Wôdan is the cloaked one, hacol-berand; so that there are many points of contact.---- Abyssus, (33) whence our nobis, I have spoken of, p. 805, and only wish now to give fuller examples of the latter form. Kilian has: nobisse (daemon, nanus, cacodaemon), nobisgat (orcus), nobiskroech (orcus). I dare say there are even more Nobiskrugs in L. Germany than Ovelgunnes, the name is often given to border taverns (krug = jug, alehouse), where you get as it were into a new country; thus you find a nobiskrug on the Frisian and Saxon frontier in Ostringien bailiwick, Oldenburg, another between Altona and Hamburg; by Kiel, by Münster, out of the way publichouses receive the name, which does not convey quite the bad sense of our hell, but rather the ancient one of death and the underworld: 'he is na nobs-kroge' means no more than he is dead. Nobiskrug is also used by HG. writers of the 16-17^th cent., usually for hell, devil's tavern, he being a helle-wirt (-landlord): 'in nobiskrug faren,' Luther's Table-talk, ed. 1571, 418a. 'the rich man's soul in nobiskrug,' Fisch. Garg. 53b. 'that he die not thus unshriven, and fare perchance to nobis-haus' Eulensp. 277. 'darauff sie sagt, sie wird dalent me in Nobis-krug sein' (= be dead), L. Thurneisser's Nothgedr. ausschr. 1584, iii. 85. 'dein seel fahr hin in nobiskrug,' Cursus Cleselianus. 'fehrst in nobiskrug,' Ayrer 76b. 'the Devil builds alway his chapel and nobiskrug, where God his church hath set,' Andr. Musculus's Hosenteufel 1630, p. 16. 'to have been in nobiskrug,' Chr. Weise's Floretto p. 74. nobishaus, Burc. Waldis 191a. 303b. According to Stald. 2, 240 nobiskratten are the place where unbaptized children go.

More beautiful is Walther's (123, 38) expression for hell, 'daz verlorne tal,' recalling Dante's 'citta dolente' and his 'perme si va tra la perduta gente' (see Suppl.)

Obscure names. On the Goth. skôhsl for daimonion a conjecture was hazarded p. 487, which is strengthened or weakened by the AS. scocca (also spelt sceocca, scucca, (34) therefore hardly scôcca); with skôhsl as it is spelt, the root skaka (quatio) would agree, while skiuha (timeo) would require skuhsl. Still nearer perhaps is the ON. skass (femina gigas), for which in Sæm. 154b the MS. reads skôs. There is one expression for devil now largely diffused in Germany, but nowhere used except as a diminutive: L. Sax. stöpke, stöpke in der helle, on the Main stebchen, stäbchen, in thieves' slang steppche, stepches, U. Sax. stebgen, stöpgen, Thur. stöpfel, Baden steubel; what is meant by it is particularly the flying fiery dragon, who calls at the homes of his devotees, bringing them money and corn; a fiery man, a will o' wisp (Superst. I, 611), and the will o' wisp was called dôlgr, foe, fiend (p. 916): all this throws no light on the origin of the word. A L. Saxon and Westphalian name already touched upon p. 521n., is drôs, de drôs in der helle, dross; people swear 'bi'm drôs,' and curse 'dat di de drôps slâ!' Brem. wtb. 1, 257. The HG. drus, truos, drüs appears to correspond, but is only used impersonally of pestilence, ch. XXXVI. There is a host of provincialisms besides, and I can neither quote nor explain them all: in Switzerland they say kuhni, kueni, Stald. 2, 142, perhaps the bold, reckless one; in Ravensberg district kramberend (from bram, broom, genista?), hanax, etc.; the M. Nethl. barlebaen, barlibaen (Huyd. op St. 3, 38. Rein. 5184. Fergût 1754. 2372. 3763), occurs pretty often, but is unintelligible, and the Romance languages afford no light; the only thing like it is the O. Eng. barlibak (acc. to Massinger 1, 80 the name of an evil spirit), and barlibreak, barleybreak is a play in which hell is represented (Nares sub v.); a MHG. 'bœser frîmurc,' Turl. Wh. 136a, said to be spelt fêmurc in Cod. Pal., seems to contain murc (putridus), Wh. 23, 5, and the ON. myrkr, AS. myrce (tenebrosus) p. 830; lastly, 'ein tiuvel der hiez oggewedel, der ie die êrsten lüge vant,' invented lies, Ms. 2, 250b: wedel is flabellum, and occurs in other names for the devil, Grünwedel, Strausswedel, ch. XXXIV, and harmonizes with flederwisch, whisk; and if ogge be the same as ocke, ecke, uoke (p. 237), the OHG. form would be Uokiwedel, flabellum horrendum.




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