g a fresh victim at the
end of each hundred years his own soul should be the forfeit. He
lived four or five centuries, and then, in spite of his most
desperate efforts, was disappointed of his expected victim on the
last night of the century; and when the clock struck twelve the
devil burst into his castle on a black steed and bore him off in a
storm of lightning amidst the crash of thunders and the shrieks of
fiends. St. Britius once during mass saw the devil in church
taking account of the sins the congregation were committing. He
covered the parchment all over, and, afraid of forgetting some of
the offences, seized the scroll in his teeth and claws to stretch
it out. It snapped, and his head was smartly bumped against the
wall. St. Britius laughed aloud. The officiating priest rebuked
him, but, on being told what had happened, improved the accident
for the edification of his hearers.22 On the bursting of a certain
glacier on the Alps, it is said the devil was seen swimming down
the Rhone, a drawn sword in one hand, a golden ball in the other:
opposite the town of Martigny, he cried, "Rise," and instantly the
obedient river swelled above its banks and destroyed the town.

Ignes fatui, hovering about marshes and misty places, were thought
to be the spirits of unbaptized children endeavoring to guide
travellers to the nearest water. A kindred fancy

21 Deutsche Mythologie, cap. xxxiii.: Teufel.

22 Quarterly Review, Jan. 1820: Pop. Myth. of the Middle Ages.

also heard a spectral pack, called "yell hounds," afterwards
corrupted to "hell hounds," composed of the souls of unbaptized
children, which could not rest, but roamed and howled through the
woods all night.23 A touching popular myth said, the robin's
breast is so red because it flies into hell with drops of water in
its bill to relieve the children there, and gets scorched.

In 1171, Silo, a philosopher, implored a dying pupil of his to
come back and reveal his state in the other world. A few days
after his death the scholar appeared in a cowl of flames covered
with logical propositions. He told Silo that he was from
purgatory, that the cowl weighed on him worse than a tower, and
said he was doomed to wear it for the pride he took in sophisms.
As he thus spoke he let fall a drop of sweat on his master's hand,
piercing it through. The next day Silo said to his scholars, "I
leave croaking to frogs, cawing to crows, and vain things to the
vain, and hie me to