to Joan Wallis, the Huntingdonshire
witch, in 1649, was in the shape of a man dressed in black, but he 'was not
as her husband, which speaks to her like a man, but he as he had been some
distance from her when he was with her'.[164] Thomazine Ratcliffe, a
Suffolk witch, said that the Devil 'spoke with a hollow, shrill
voyce'.[165] According to Mary Green (1665) the Somerset Devil, who was a
little man, 'put his hand to his Hat, saying, How do ye? speaking low but
big'.[166] In the same year Abre Grinset, another Suffolk witch, confessed
that she met the Devil, who was in the form of 'a Pretty handsom Young Man,
and spake to her with a hollow Solemn Voice'.[167] John Stuart at Paisley
(1678) said the Devil came to him as a black man, 'and that the black man's
Apparel was black; and that the black man's Voice was hough and
goustie'.[168]

The coldness of the devil's entire person, which is vouched for by several
witches, suggests that the ritual disguise was not merely a mask over the
face, but included a covering, possibly of leather or some other hard and
cold substance, over the whole body and even the hands. Such a disguise was
apparently not always worn, for in the great majority of cases there is no
record of the Devil's temperature except in the sexual rites, and even then
the witch could not always say whether the touch of the Devil was warm or
not. In 1565 the Belgian witch, Digna Robert, said the devil 'etait froid
dans tous ses membres'.[169] In 1590, at North Berwick, 'he caused all the
company to com and kiss his ers, quhilk they said was cauld lyk yce; his
body was hard lyk yrn, as they thocht that handled him'.[170] In 1598
Pierre Burgot, whose statement is quoted by several authors, 'a confesse,
que le Diable luy donna a baiser sa main senestre, qui estoit noire, comme
morte, & toute froide'.[171] In 1609, in the Basses-Pyrenees, Isaac de
Queyran, aged 25, said that he and others 'le baiserent a vne fesse qui
estoit blanche & rouge, & auoit la forme d'vne grande cuisse d'vn homme, &
estoit velue'.[172] This shows the ritual disguise of the person and
suggests the use of an animal's hide with the hair still attached. In 1645
the Essex witch Rebecca West said 'he kissed her, but was as cold as
clay'.[173] At Salisbury in 1653, when the witch Anne Bodenham persuaded
Anne Styles to join the community, 'then appeared two Spirits in the
likenesse of great Boyes, with long shagged black hair, and stood by her
look