Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/626

 2 yS Journal of American Folk-Lore.

��THE DEVIL'S GRANDMOTHER.

Although Satan is the hero of Milton's epic, we learn nothing from that great poem about his female relatives. Shakespeare, how- ever, speaks some half-dozen times of "the devil and his dam." In the " Comedy of Errors " (Act IV. sc. iii.), where the person spoken of is a courtezan, we read : —

Antipholus of Syracuse : Satan, avoid ! I charge thee, tempt me not.

Dromio of Syracuse : Master, is this Mistress Satan?

Antiph. : It is the devil.

Drom. : Nay, she is worse, she is the devil's dam.

But it is to folk-lore, with its general, if crude, and sometimes savage humanity, that we must go for a more or less complete gene- alogy of the devil.

Of all peoples, the Teutons, the modern Low Germans especially, seem to have had the most kindly feeling towards the devil, fur- nishing him at times with a wife, a mother, and a grandmother, the last, who is often indistinguishable from the second, being the most important and interesting character. Following are some of the proverbs and folk-sayings in which these personages appear : —

i. The devil is beating his mother (said when rain and sunshine follow quickly after each other).

2. You have brought the devil and his mother (said of unwelcome com- pany).

3. If you are the devil, I am his mother.

4. Who are you, the devil or his mother ?

5. Is he the devil, or his wife?

6. The devil and his mother (= all the world and his wife).

7. Inseparable, like the devil and his mother.

8. To ask after the devil and his mother.

9. You can go to the devil and his grandmother (= you can go where you please).

10. The devil should have had him long ago, but is waiting to find his fellow, for his grandmother wants a new pair of coach-horses.

11. Where the devil cannot come, he sends his grandmother.

12. The devil is dancing with his grandmother (said when a whirlwind occurs).

13. The devil's grandmother can dance on it (said of very thick soup).

14. As if the devil had ploughed with his grandmother (=awry).

15. As fast as the devil dragging his grandmother along ( = very slow and unwillingly).

16. When the devil's grandmother has cleaned up hell, he goes off on a journey (said when the husband flees before the scrub-broom of his wife).

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