Donar, whom, as Jacob Grimm
says, the modern notions of the devil so often have in the background.
Long bearded devils are nowhere normal except in the representations
of the Eastern Church of the monarch of hell as counterpart of the
monarch of heaven. The eyeless devil is original with our writer. His
disciple Baudelaire in his story _Les Tentations ou Eros, Plutus et la
Gloire_ presents the second of these three Tempters as an eyeless
monster. The mediaeval devil had saucer eyes. According to a Russian
legend, the all-seeing spirit of evil is all covered with eyes. The
cadaverous aspect of the devil is traditional. With but one remarkable
exception (the Egyptian Typhon), demons are always represented lean.
"A devil," said Caesarius of Heisterbach of the thirteenth century,
"is usually so thin as to cast no shadow" (_Dialogus Miraculorum_,
iii). This characteristic is a heritage of the ancient hunger-demon,
who, himself a shadow, casts no shadow. In the course of the
centuries, however, the devil has gained flesh. His faded suit of
black cloth recalls the mediaeval devil who appeared "in his fethers
all ragged and rent."

It is not altogether improbable that the ecclesiastical appearance of
the devil in this story was not wholly unintentional, as the author
believes. While Satan cannot be said to be "one of those who take to
the ministry mostly," he often likes to slip into priestly robes. In
the "Temptation of Jesus" by Lucas van Leyden the devil is habited as
a monk with a pointed cowl.

In the comparison of a soul with a shadow there is a reminiscence of
Adalbert von Chamisso, whose _Peter Schlemihl_ (1814) sells his shadow
to the devil. In his story _The Fisherman and His Soul_ Oscar Wilde
considers the shadow of the body as the body of the soul.

That the devils in hell eat the damned consigned there for punishment
is also in accord with mediaeval tradition. This idea probably is of
Oriental origin. The seven Assyrian evil spirits have a predilection
for human flesh and blood. Ghouls and vampires belong to this class of
demons.

The devil's pitchfork is not the forked sceptre of Pluto supplemented
by another tine, as is commonly assumed. It is the ancient sign of
fertility, which is still used as a fertility charm by the Hindus in
India and the Zuni and Aztec Indians of North America and Mexico. A
related symbol is the trident of Poseidon or Neptune. This symbol was
recently carried in a children's May Day