Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/301

 Rh an encounter with the Evil Spirit, and a great triumph for the dauntless minister.

In his Rambles on the Ribble Mr. Dobson records what professes to be a genuine Lancashire tale which has been told for generations by many a fireside on the banks of that river. There stood till recently in the town of Clitheroe a public-house bearing the strange name of Dule upon Dun, on the signboard of which the devil was depicted riding off at full speed upon a dun horse, while a tailor, scissors in hand, looked on with delight.

It appears that in former days, when the Evil One used to visit the earth in bodily form and enter into contracts with mortals, giving them material prosperity now in exchange for the soul at a future time, a tailor of Clitheroe entered into some such agreement with him. At the expiration of the term, however, the tailor having failed to receive any benefit at all from the agreement, asked from his Satanic Majesty the boon of “one wish more.” It was granted. A dun horse was grazing hard by, and the ready-witted tailor, pointing to the animal, wished that the devil might ride straight to his own quarters upon it and never come back to earth to plague mortal. Instantly the horse was bestridden by the Evil One, who speedily rode out of sight never to return in a bodily shape. People came from far and near to see the man who had outwitted the devil, and soon it occurred to the tailor to set up an alehouse for the entertainment of his visitors, taking for a sign the devil riding a dun horse, or as the neighbours called it for brevity “the Dule upon Dun.”

A strange story is told by Scottish firesides, how the devil desired to learn one trade after another, but failed in all. First, he would be a weaver, but he pricked his fingers with the pins of the temples, and threw up that occupation. A scrap of an old song speaks of his weaving days—

Next he tried his fortune as a tailor, but first he sewed his fingers to the cloth, and then spoiled the sleeve of the coat he was