Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/300

 278 it has no gall-bladder. It is curious to compare this piece of Border Folk-lore with that of Devonshire, where it is said that the devil can assume all shapes except those of the lamb and the dove. A little girl, on the borders of Dartmoor, told this to one of my relations, adding, “He can’t make himself look like they, because of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.’

Mr. G. Henderson’s Popular Rhymes of Berwickshire tells us of a remarkable piece of service formerly done to the Evil One. “Cloutie’s croft,” he says, “or the gudeman’s field, consisted of a small portion of the best land, set apart by the inhabitants of most Scottish villages as a propitiatory gift to the devil, on which property they never ventured to intrude. It was dedicated to the devil’s service alone, being left untilled and uncropped, and it was reckoned highly dangerous to break up by tillage such pieces of ground.”

A little anecdote has been related to me by the minister of, on the Tweedside, which shows that the Evil Spirit is held to have power of molesting good Christians in wild lonely places. A country minister, after attending a meeting of his presbytery, had to return home alone, and very late, on a dark evening. While riding in a gloomy part of the road, his horse stumbled, and the good man was suddenly flung to the ground. A loud laugh followed, so scornful and so weird, that the minister felt no doubt of the quarter whence it proceeded. However, with a stout heart, he remounted without delay, and continued his journey, crying out, “Ay, Satan, ye may laugh; but, when I fall, I can get up again; when ye fell, ye never rose”—on which a deep groan was heard. This was firmly believed to have been