Some in the meane while play at cardes, and some the dice do shake. Their custome also is, the priest into the house to pull:

Whom when they have, they thinke their game accomplished at full: He farre in noise exceedes them all, and eke in drinking drie The cuppes, a prince he is, and holdes their heades that speewing lie."

Compare Wake.

Demoniac.-The_very curious and extraordinary "Saxon Leechdoms," edited by Mr. Cockayne, contain a receipt for a fiend-sick man, or demoniac." It was a spew-drink, or emetic: lupin, bishopwort, henbane, cropleek; pound these together, add ale for a liquid, let it stand for a night, add fifty libcorns, or cathartic grains, and holy water. A drink for a fiend-sick man, to be drunk out of a church bell: githrife, cynoglossum, yarrow, &c., work up the drink off clear ale, sing seven masses over the worts, add garlic and holy water, and drip the drink into every drink which he will subsequently drink, and let him sing the psalms, Beati Immaculati, and Exsurgat, and Salvum me fac, deus, and then let him drink out of a church bell, and let the mass priest after the drink sing this over him, Domine, sancte pater omnipotens." Following these two specifics for fiend-sick men, is a third, equally repugnant to modern ideas of common sense, for a lunatic.

Denier à Dieu.-See God's Penny. Denier de Foi.-Douce, in a paper read before the Society of Antiquaries in January, 1810, observes: "The small piece of silver, that accompanies this paper is inscribed Denier de Foy or pour Epouser, having on one side a heart between two hands, and on the other two fleurs de lis. It is not in reality a current piece of money, but only a local or a particular token or symbol of property. It is, as the inscription imports, a French betrothing penny, given before the marriage ceremony. I do not think that Douce proves more than the delivery of a token in earnest of dower, and of his betrothing penny there are, to the best of my knowledge, no Anglo-Saxon or English examples in existence. There is another sort inscribed Denier Tournois pour Epouser. These pieces occur both in gold and silver; see supplement to Hazlitt's Coins of Europe, 1897, p. 33. But, after all, the token exhibited by Douce appears to have been nothing more than an example of the festing-penny, familiar enough in the northern counties of England, and no doubt properly identified with the Danish custom of hiring or binding apprentices with some such token. Festing is, of course, a form of fasting or fastening. The foesteninge

ring was similarly the betrothing-ring or, as it is now called, the engaged-ring. To fest, in the North of England, is to bind as an apprentice. Mr. Atkinson, in his Cleveland Glossary, 1868, after observing that the festing-penny of the North of England is analogous to the Scandinavian betrothing penny (shown by Douce to have been also known in France), adds: "if a servant who has been duly hired and received her hiring or festing-penny, wishes to cancel her bargain. . . she always sends back the festing penny. Two instances of this kind have occurred in this (Danby) parish in the course of the spring hiringtime of the present year, 1865."

Dequoy or Decoy. See Cards. Dessil.-Martin says: "In this Island of Lewis there was an antient custom to make a fiery circle about the houses, corn, cattle, &c., belonging to each particular family. A man carried fire in his right hand, and went round, and it was called Dessil, from the right hand, which, in the antient language, is called Dess. There is another way of the dessil, or carrying fire round about women before they are churched, and about children until they be christened, both of which are performed in the morning and at night. They told me this fire round was an effectual means to preserve both the mother and the infant from the power of evil spirits, who are ready at such times to do mischief, and sometimes carry away the infants, and return them poor meagre skeletons, and these infants are said to have voracious appetites, constantly craving for meat. In this case it was usual for those who believed that their children were thus taken away, to dig a grave in the fields upon Quarter Day, and there to lay the fairy skeleton till next morning: at which time the parents went to the place, where they doubted not to find their own child instead of the skeleton." Hist. of W. Islands, p. 116. He elsewhere observes, "Loch-siant Well in Skie is much frequented by strangers as well as by the inhabitants of the Isle, who generally believe it to be a specifick for several diseases; such as stitches, headaches, stone, consumption, megrim. Several of the common people oblige themselves by a vow to come to this well and make the ordinary tour about it, called Dessil, which is performed thus: They move thrice round the well, proceeding sun-ways, from east to west, and so on. This is done after drinking of the water; and when one goes away from the well, it is a never-failing custom to leave some small offering on the stone which covers the well. There is a small coppice near it, of which none of the natives dare venture to cut the least branch, for fear of some signal judgement to follow upon it." Description of W. Islands of Scotland, 140.

He also speak of a well of similar quality, at which, after drinking, they make a tour and then leave an offering of some small token, such as a pin, needle, farthing, or the like, on the stone cover which is above the well.

Deuce.-Deuce may be said to be another popular name for the Devil. Few, perhaps, who make use of the expression "Deuce take you," particularly those of the softer sex, who accompanying it with the gentle pat of a fan, cannot be supposed to mean any ill by it, are aware that it is synonymous with sending you to the Devil." Dusius was the ancient popular name for a kind of demon or devil among the Gauls, so that this saying, the meaning of which so few understand, has at least its antiquity to recommend it. It is mentioned by St. Augustine (De Civitate Dei, c. 23) as a libidinous demon, who used to violate the chastity of women, and, with the incubus of old, was charged with doing a great deal of mischief of so subtle a

nature, that, as none saw it, it did not seem possible to be prevented. Later times have done both these devils justice, candidly supposing them to have been much traduced by a certain set of delinquents, who used to father upon invisible and imaginary agents the crimes of real men. Devil.-In some of the early Mysteries Satan is introduced as Saint Mahown. The Glossary to Burns mentions Hornie as one of his Majesty's names. And another is Old Boots, whence the saying, "It rains like Old Boots."

There is a story in one of the Chronicles, under the year 1165, that the Devil was seen riding like a great black horse, before a storm which happened in Yorkshire in that year, and that the marks of his feet were visible in several places, particularly on the cliff at Scarborough, where he sprang into the sea. Not many years ago, an extraordinary sensation was produced in the South of England, by the discovery of marks in various parts of the country, which could not be identified with the prints of any known beast or bird, unless it was that there was some similitude to a donkey's shoe. The people in those parts did not like to say it was the Devil, perhaps; but it is not unlikely that some of them thought so. At the same time, no explanation of the mystery has, I believe, been offered to this day. Perhaps this extraordinary presence may have been nothing more than the cloven hoof which, in the deep snows of winter, is said to haunt the Dewerstone, a rocky elevation on the borders of Dartmoor. But this latter phenomenon is reported to be accompanied by a naked human foot, of which a case occurred in Devonshire, and created a wide and long

Several sensation, many years since. instances of mysterious footprints are collected in "Lancashire Folk - Lore," 1867. There is no vulgar story of the Devil having appeared anywhere without a cloven foot. It is observable also that this infernal enemy, in graphic representations of him, is seldom or never pictured Othello says: without one.

"I look down towards his feet; but that's a fable;

If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee";

which Johnson explains : "I look towards his feet, to see, if, according to the common opinion, his feet be cloven." Grose says:"Although the devil can partly transform himself into a variety of shapes, will always mark him under every appearhe cannot change his cloven foot, which

ance."

Scott has the following curious passage on this subject: "In our childhood, our mother's maids have so terrified head, fire in his mouth, and a tail in his us with an ugly devil, having horns on his breech, eyes like a basin, fangs like a dog, claws like a bear, a skin like a Niger, and start and are afraid when we hear one cry a voyce roaring like a lyon, whereby we Bough!" He adds: "and they have so frayed us with bul-beggars, spirits, witches, urchens, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, pans, faunes, sylens, Kit with the canstick, Tritons, centaures, dwarfes, gyants, imps, calcars, conjurers, nymphes, changelings, incubus, Robin Good-fellow, the spoorn, the mare, the man in the oak, the Hell-wain, the fire-drake, the puckle, Tom-thombe, hob-goblin, Tom-tumbler, Boneless, and such other bugs, that we are afraid of our own shadowes; insomuch that some never feare the devil but in a darke night, &c. Discovery, ed. 1665. p. 65. Philip Stubbes, in his "Two wonderful and rare examples" (1581), describes a remarkable case which happened to Mistress Bowcer, at Donnington, in Leicestershire: "And nowe," says Stubbs, I will proceede to shewe one other as straunge a judgement happening in Leicestershire, in a towne called Donnington, where dwelled a poore man named Iohn Twell, who deceased, owing unto one Oswald Bowcer the summe of fiue shilling, which the sayde Oswalde did forgiue the sayde man before named, as he lay vpon his death bedde; but the sayde Oswaldes wife, called Ioane, would in no way forgive the said Twell, as long (she sayde) as she had to live. Whereupon, not long after, the Deuill appeared vnto her in the form of the sayd Twell deceased, expressing all the lyneamentes of the body of the dead man which might well be, for we reade in the Bible, in the like order did Satan counter

feit the body of Samuell. But to proceede to the matter: this euill spirit uttered vnto her these speeches, and said he had brought her money from fohn Twell deceased, and willed her incontinent to disburse the sayd money vnto her husband for his paines. Which she, with as covetous a desire, receyved, saying, God thanke you. She had no sooner named God, but the money consumed away from betweene her handes, as it were a vapour of smoake, tyll it was all consumed: wherewith the Deuill, giving her a most fearfull and sore stroke, vanished out of her sight. Wherewith her whole body became as blacke as pitche, replenished all over with a moste filthy Scurfe and other things.'

The Rev. George Gordon, who drew up the old statistical account of Sorn, co. Ayr, in 1798, observes: There is a tradition well authenticated that King James the fifth honoured his treasurer Sir William Hamilton with a visit at Sorn Castle, on occasion of the marriage of his daughter to Lord Seton. The King's visit at Sorn Castle took place in winter; and being heartily tired of his journey through so long a track of moor, moss, and miry clay, where there was neither road nor bridge, he is reported to have said with that good-humoured pleasantry which was a characteristic of so many of his family, that were he to play the Deil a trick, he would send him from Glascow to Sorn in winter.'" "The trick now-a-days," continues the writer, "would not prove a very serious one; for Satan, old as he is, might travel very comfortably one half of the way in a mail-coach, and the other half in a post-chaise. Neither would he be forced, like King James, for want of better accommodation, to sit down about mid-way, by the side of a well (hence called King's Well), and there take a cold refreshment in a cold day. At the very same place he might now find a tolerable inn and a warm dinner." S.A., xx. 170. An early writer, speaking of a man who desired an interview with the Prince of Darkness, says that he was recommended to go in quest of him to wild Scotland, his favourite sojourn, but that when the traveller proceeded to act on this advice, he failed to discover his majesty, and merely met with an old woman, who pretended to have some knowledge of him. Michel, Les Ecossais en France, 1862, p. 2. At this time, no doubt, the farther extremities of the country, at least, were practically a terra incognita, about which any legends might be set afloat. Winslow, in his Good News from New England, 1624, speaking of the sacrifices of the Indians to the Devil, says: "They have told me I should see the Devil at those times come to the vestry; but I assured myself and them of the con

trary which so proved. Yea, themselves have confessed, they never saw him, when any of us were present." In a tract in the Huth library, printed about 1645, among other "Signs and Wonders from Heaven,' is an account how the Evil One came to a farmer's house at Swaffham in West Norfolk under the form of a gentlewoman on horseback. In Massinger's "Virgin Martyr," 1622, act iii. sc. 1, Harpax, an evil spirit, following Theophilus in the shape of a secretary, speaks thus of the superstitious Christian's description of his infernal master :

"I'll tell you what now of the Devil: He's no such horrid creature; clovenfooted,

Black, saucer-ey'd, his nostrils breathing fire,

As these lying Christians make him." In a contemporary description of the appearance of the Devil at St. Alban's, Herts, in 1648, it is said that he then assumed the likeness of a ram, and that a butcher cut his throat, sold a portion of the flesh, and cooked the remainder for himself and a select party of friends, all of which was (6 attested by divers letters of persons of very good credit," and the tract itself purported to have been published "for confutation of those that believe there are no such things as spirits or devils." Hone's Ancient Mysteries, 1823, p. 89. This infernal visitant appears in no instance to have been treated with more sang froid on his appearing, or rather perhaps his imagined appearance, than by one Mr. White of Dorchester, assessor to the Westminster Assembly at Lambeth, as recorded by Mr. Samuel Clarke: "The Devil, in a light night, stood by his bedside: he looked awhile whether he would say or do anything, and then said, 'If thou hast nothing else to do, I have' and

turned himself to sleep." Baxter's Certainty of the World of Spirits, 1691, p. 63. He adds, that "Many say it from Mr. White himself." One has only to wonder, on this occasion, that a person who could so effectually lay the Devil, could have been induced to think, or rather dream, of raising him. Sir Thomas Browne is full on this subject of popular superstition in his "Vulgar Errors : "The ground of this opinion at first," says he, "might be his frequent appearing in the shape of a goat," (this accounts also for his horns and tail)," which answers the description. This was the opinion of the antient Christians, concerning the Apparition of Panites, Fauns, and Satyrs; and of this form wo read of one that appeared to Anthony in the Wilderness. The same is also confirmed from expositions of Holy Scripture. For whereas it is said, Thou shalt not offer

N

unto Devils: the original word is Seghuirim, that is, rough and hairy goats, because in that shape the Devil most often appeared, as is expounded by the Rabins, as Tremellius hath also explained, and as the word Ashimah, the God of Emath, is by some conceived." He observes, also, that the goat was the emblem of the sinoffering, and is the emblem of sinful men at the Day of Judgment. It is observed in the "Connoisseur," No. 109, that "the famous Sir Thomas Browne refuted the generally-received opinion, that the Devil is black, has horns upon his head, wears a long curling tail and a cloven stump: nay has even denied that, wheresoever he goes, he always leaves a smell of brimstone behind him." Baxter tells us that "Devils have a greater game to play invisibly than by apparitions. O happy world, if they

did not do a hundred thousand times more hurt by the baits of pleasure, lust, and honour, and by pride, and love of money; and sensuality, than they do by witches.' World of Spirits, 1691, p. 223. In "Sphinx and Edipus." (part of" A Helpe to Discourse," 1627), I read that "the Devil never appears in the shape of a dove, or a lamb, but in those of goats, dogs, and cats, or such like and that to the Witch of Edmonton he appeared in the shape of a dog, and called his name Dom." An essayist in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for October, 1732, observes that,As for the great Evil Spirit, 'tis for his interest to bo masked and invisible. Amongst his sworn vassals and subjects he may allow himself to appear in disguise at a public paw-wawing, (which is attested by a cloud of travellers), but there is no instance of his appearing among us, except that produced by Mr. Echard, to a man in so close confederacy with him, that 'twas reasonable to suppose they should now and then contrive a personal meeting."

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The old ceremonies used in ing the devil, such as making circle with chalk, setting an old hat in the centre of it, repeating the Lord's Prayer backward, and so forth, even when Brand wrote about 1795, had

become, he says, altogether obsolete, and seem to be forgotten even amongst our boys." Obsession of the devil is distinguished from possession in this. In possession the evil one was said to enter into the body of the man. In obsession, with out entering into the body of the person, he was thought to besiege and torment him without. To be lifted up into the air, and afterwards to be thrown down violently, without receiving any hurt; to speak strange languages that the person had never learned; not to be able to come near holy things or the sacraments, but to have an aversion to them; to know and foretell secret things; to perform things that ex

ceed the person's strength; to say or do things that the person would not or durst not say, if he were not externally moved to it, were the ancient marks and criterions of possessions. Jorden observes: "I doe not deny but there may be both possessions, and obsessions, and witchcraft, &c., and dispossession also through the prayers and supplications of God's servants, which is the only means left unto

us

to

us for our reliefe in that case. But such examples being verye rare now-a-dayes, I would in the feare of God advise men to be very circumspect in pronouncing of a possession: both because the impostures be many, and the effects of naturall diseases be strange to such as have not looked thoroughly into them." Suffocation of the Mother, 1603, Dedic. The semi-mythiauthentic version, so to speak, is in the cal legend of Faustus, of which the most Editor's National Tales and Legends, 1892, introduces demons, having Lucifer as their chief and a plurality of Mephistopheles as an agent on earth; a scene in the story and there is where a parliament of devils assembles, under the eyes of Faustus. In the History of Friar Rush, a romance of the 16th century, the Evil One is represented as holding occasional receptions, or levees of his emissaries, and listening to their reports of the most recent achievements One of performed by them in his behalf. them was Rush himself. Another bore the unusual name of Norpell. The more atrocious their exploits, the warmer of course was his Satanic majesty's commendation. There was an early metri

cal tract under the title of the Parliament of Devils, two or three times printed about 1520, and possibly responsible for the suggestion of the Rush piece just mentioned. Cassian, mentioning a host of devils who had been abroad in the night, says, that soon as the morn approached, they all vanished and fled away: which farther evinces that Vallancey Coll. viii., c. 16. this was the current opinion of the time.

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Devil on Two Sticks.-A correspondent of Notes and Queries (about 1880) writes as follows:-"I possess the means Sometimes, when I see the stick and hourof playing the game, but not the art. glass shaped 'devil,' I wish I could handle them, for I have seen an old friend display great skill with the sticks in his garden, sending the devil' humming on high, and catching it with great accuracy. My old uncles used to talk of it; they knew and played the game early in this century. It may be of interest to know that such games have been found very useful faute de mieux. I remember one day, more than thirty years ago, paying a visit to one of the dearest old ladies I ever knew, named

Lady Scovell, the wife of Sir George Scovell, whom she had accompanied in his Peninsular campaigns when he was one of the most useful and most trusted of the Duke's staff. I found her disentangling & number of cups and balls, the strings of which had been all mixed by a carpetcrawling urchin, who had upset the basket containing them. I was surprised at the variety of shapes and sizes. The balls had to be caught on common average cups, cups flattened almost to a table, cups cut away on both sides till only a crescent was left, and, of course, the usual spike. On my asking her how she came by such a collection she told me that during the war she came home one winter to see her friends whilst the army was in quarters, and whilst at home she got a letter from Sir Rowland (Lord) Hill, saying the weather was so bad they very often could not get out, and he begged her to bring with her on her return any indoor games for himself and staff. Lady Scovell said she at once got these varieties of cups and balls and devils on two sticks made, and (having taken them to Spain) she added that they answered the purpose admirably, but it was rather funny to see the general and staff in the afternoon, when the day's work was finished, moving about the rooms hard at work at these games; and one backing himself against another." And this was seventy years ago.

Devil's Bit.-Coles tells us that "there is one herb, flat at the bottome, and seemeth as if the nether part of its root were bit off, and is called Devil'sbit, whereof it is reported that the devill, knowing that that part of the root would cure all diseases, out of his inveterate malice to mankind, bites it off." Knowledge of Plants, 1656, p. 37.

Devil-Worship.-Dr Paul Carus, in his History of the Devil, makes the Spirit of Evil the primary object of propitiatory homage on the part of archaic communities more disposed to dread the apparent source of what they suffered than that of what they enjoyed. On the principal of Dualism, in a more enlightened age, it still remains in a way a salutary inducement to rectitude to suppose the existence of a Power not merely able, but anxious, to punish the evil-doer. The modern popular theories of the Devil are the converse of that of universal original subjection to such a creation as the Thibetan All-Devourer, and depict man originally pure and sinless, and the Evil One as a rebellious and degraded minister of God.

as

Dew. Willsford tells us: "Mettals in general, against much wet or rainy weather, will seem to have a dew hang upon them, and be much apter to sully or

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foul any thing that is rubbed with the metal; as you may see in pewter dishes against rain, as if they did sweat, leaving a smutch upon the table cloaths: with this Pliny concludes as a signe of tempests approaching. Stones against rain will have a dew hang upon them; but the sweating of stones is from several causes, and sometimes is a sign of much drought. Glasses of all sorts will have a dew upon them in moist weather: Glasse windows will also shew a frost, by turning the air that touches them into water, and then congealing of it." Nature's Secrets, p. 138. This depends, of course, on the difference between the internal and external temperature. At Hertford Assizes, 4 Car. I., the following testimony, which of course, merely reflects the popular view of the subject, was taken by Sir John Maynard, Serjeant at Law, from the deposition of the minister of the parish where a murder was committed: "That the body being taken out of the grave thirty days after the party's death, and lying on the grass, and the four defendants (suspected of murdering her) being required, each of them touched the dead body, whereupon the brow of the dead, which before was of a livid and carrion colour, began to have a dew, or gentle sweat, arise on it, which down in drops on the face, the brow turned encreased by degrees, till the sweat ran to a fresh and lively colour; and the deceased opened one of her eyes, and shut it again three several times: she likewise thrust out the ring or marriage finger three times, and pulled it in again, and the finger dropt blood on the grass." The minister of the next parish, who also was present, being sworn, gave evidence exactly as above. Gentleman's Magazine, 1731. Compare May-Day.

Dice. In the Municipal Records of the City of London we first become aware abuses in connection with the introduction of the employment of dice by reason of of them under 1311 for the purpose of cheating. Unsuspecting persons were even then enticed into taverns by well-dressed sharpers, and robbed in this way. Other notices, where false dice occur, may be found under 1334 and 1376, where tables or backgammon is mentioned as a second Memorials, 1868, pp. 86, 193, 395. In the amusement and medium of deceit. Riley's account of the entertainment given to Richard, son of the Black Prince, in 1337, the mummers shewed by pair of dice their desire to play with the young Prince. Hazlitt's Warton, 1871, iii., 161. Sir T. Elyot, in Governor," 1531, has some remarks on this subject, which, as illustrating the state of feeling in Henry VIII.'s time, may be worth a place here: "I suppose there is not a more playne figure of idlenesse,

his "

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