Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/37

Rh as popular superstition pictures the "foul fiend," with horns, and cloven feet, and a hideously distorted countenance not because it is really accredited, but because nothing is thought too vile or too fearful for the Evil One. The hostility which the crusades excited and nourished; nay, the very difference of religious feeling, would necessarily call out the whole virulence of an age, not remarkable for its forbearance; and it is absurd to suppose that the intercourse so long maintained between the two continents (both previous to these expeditions, and subsequent), should not have given them a sufficient acquaintance with the Saracen belief, and mode of worship. If the great Saladin required and received knight-hood from the hands of the Christians, it argued a degree of intimacy