Offering fowls to evil spirits appears to have been an ancient and wide-spread practice. It was common to sacrifice a cock to the devil. Burns, in his "Address to the Deil," says—"Some cock or cat your rage must stop." Music and dancing are also associated in our popular superstitions with witches, evil spirits, and the devil. The devils, it is said, love music, but dread bells, and have a very delicate sense of smells. In the True and Faithful Relation of what passed between Dr. Dee and some Spirits, we learn that the devil appeared to the doctor "as an angel in a white robe, holding a bloody cross in his right hand, the same hand being also bloody," and in this guise he prayed, and "anabaptistically bewailed the wickedness of the world."[63]
RAISING THE DEVIL.
The boys at the Burnley Grammar-school are said to have succeeded on one occasion in raising the devil. They repeated the Lord's Prayer backwards, and performed some incantations by which, as it is said, Satan was induced to make his appearance through a stone flag on the floor of the school-house. After he had got his head and shoulders well out, the boys became alarmed, and began to hammer him down with the poker and tongs. With much ado they drove him back; but the black mark he had left on the flag was shown in proof of his appearance until the school-house was repaired, a few years ago, when the floor was boarded over, and the flagstone disappeared.
THE DEVIL & THE SCHOOLMASTER AT COCKERHAM.
It is said that the arch Spirit of Evil once took up his abode in Cockerham, and so scared and disturbed the inhabitants of that quiet place, that at length in public meeting, to consider how to free themselves from this fiendish persecution, they appointed the schoolmaster, as the wisest and cleverest man in the place, to do his best to drive the devil away. Using the prescribed incantation at midnight, the pedagogue succeeded in raising Satan; but when he saw his large horns and tail, saucer eyes, and long claws, he became almost speechless. According to the recognised procedure in such cases, the devil granted him the privilege of setting three tasks, which if he (Satan) accomplished, the schoolmaster became his prey; if he failed, it would compel the flight of the demon from Cockerham. The first task, to count the number of dewdrops on certain hedges, was soon accomplished; and so was the second, to count the number of stalks in a field of grain. The third task was then proposed in the following words, according to a doggerel version of the tradition:—
"Now make me, dear sir, a rope of yon sand,
Which will bear washing in Cocker, and not lose a strand."
Speedily the rope was twisted of fine sand, but it would not stand washing; so the devil was foiled, and at one stride he stepped over the bridge over Broadfleet, at Pilling Moss. The metrical version of the legend is scarcely worth printing.
OLD NICK.
According to Scandinavian mythology, the supreme god Odin assumes the name of Nick, Neck, Nikkar, Nikur, or Hnikar, when he acts as the evil or destructive principle. In the character of Nikur, or Hnikudur, a Protean water-sprite, he inhabits the lakes and rivers of Scandinavia, where he raises sudden storms and tempests, and leads mankind into destruction. Nick, or Nickar, being an object of dread to the Scandinavians, propitiatory worship was offered to him; and hence it has been imagined that the Scandinavian spirit of the waters became, in the middle ages, St. Nicholas, the patron of sailors, who invoke his aid in storms and tempests. This supposition (which has a degree of probability almost amounting to certainty) receives countenance from the great devotion still felt by the Gothic nations towards St. Nicholas, to whom many churches on the sea-shore are dedicated. The church of St. Nicholas, in this situation at Liverpool, was consecrated in 1361; and, says Mr. Baines,[64] "in the vicinity there formerly stood a statue of St. Nicholas; and when the faith in the intercession of saints was more operative than at present, the mariners were wont to present a peace-offering for a prosperous voyage on their going out to sea, and a wave-offering on their return; but the saint, having lost his votaries, has long since disappeared." The Danish Vikings called the Scandinavian sea-god Hold Nickar, which in time degenerated into the ludicrous expression, "Old Nick."[65]
Another writer on this subject says:—We derive the familiar epithet of "Old Nick" from the Norwegian Nök, the Norse Nikr, or the Swedish Neck; and no further proof of their identity is required than a comparison between the attributes possessed in common by all these supernatural beings. The Nök is said to require a human sacrifice once a year, and some one is therefore annually missing in the vicinity of the pond or river where this sprite has taken up its abode. The males are said to be very partial to young maidens, whom they seize and drag under the water; whilst those of the opposite sex are quite as attractive and dangerous to the young fishermen who frequent the rivers. The German Nixes possess the same attributes. Both sexes have large green teeth; and the male wears a green hat, which is frequently mistaken by his victims for a tuft of beautiful vegetation. He is said to kill without mercy whenever he drags a person down; and a fountain of blood, which shoots up from the surface of the water, announces the completion of the deed. A perfect identification of this with our own popular belief is now easy. Nothing is more common at present than for children who reside in the country to be cautioned against venturing too near the water's brink, lest "Green Teeth" or "Bloody Bones" should pull them in. "Old Nick" is said to lurk under the shady willows which overhang the deep water; and the bubbles of gas which may be observed escaping from the bottoms of quiet pools are attributed to the movements of the water-sprites which lurk beneath.