remarked by Mr. Cox, of the name 'Vala' (seducer),
one of the designations of the dragon destroyed by Indra.
€ In Sir Walter Scott's romance/ says Mr. Cox, ' Wayland
is a mere impostor, who avails himself of a popular super-
stition to keep up an air of mystery about himself and
his work, but the character to which he makes pretence
belongs to the genuine Teutonic legend/ x The Persian
demon Aeshma — the Asmodeus of the Book of Tobit
— appears with the same characteristic of lameness in
the ' Diable Boiteux ' of Le Sage. The christian devil's
clubbed or cloven foot is notorious.
Even the horns popularly attributed to the devil ma>
possibly have originated with the aureole which indicates
the glory of his ' first estate/ Satan is depicted in various
relics of early art wearing the aureole, as in a miniature
of the tenth century (from Bible No. 6, Bib. Roy.), given
by M. Didron. 2 The same author has shown that Pan
and the Satyrs, who had so much to do with the shaping
of our horned and hoofed devil, originally got their
horns from the same high source as Moses in the old
Bibles, 8 and in the great statue of him at Rome by Michel.
Angelo.
It is through this mythologic history that the most
powerful demons have been associated in the popular
imagination with stars, planets, — Ketu in India, Saturn
and Mercury the ' Infortunes/ — comets, and other celestial
phenomena. The examples of this are so numerous that
it is impossible to deal with them here, where I can only
hope to offer a few illustrations of the principles affirmed ;
and in this case it is of less importance for the English <span style="font-size: 12px; text-align: justify;">reader, because of the interesting volume in which the </span></pre>
subject has been specially dealt with. 1 Incidentally, too,
the astrological demons and devils must recur from time
to time in the process of our inquiry. But it will pro-
bably be within the knowledge of some of my readers
that the dread of comets and of meteoric showers yet
lingers in many parts of Christendom, and that fear of
unlucky stars has not passed away with astrologers.
There is a Scottish legend told by Hugh Miller of an
avenging meteoric demon. A shipmaster who had moored
his vessel near Morial's Den, amused himself by watching
the lights of the scattered farmhouses. After all the rest
had gone out one light lingered for some time. When
that light too had disappeared, the shipmaster beheld a
large meteor, which, with a hissing noise, moved towards
the cottage. A dog howled, an owl whooped ; but when
the fire-ball had almost reached the roof, a cock crew from
within the cottage, and the meteor rose again. Thrice
this was repeated, the meteor at the third cock-crow
ascending among the stars. On the following day the
shipmaster went on shore, purchased the cock, and took
it away with him. Returned from his voyage, he looked
for the cottage, and found nothing but a few blackened
stones. Nearly sixty years ago a human skeleton was
found near the spot, doubled up as if the body had been
huddled into a hole: this revived the legend, and pro-
bably added some of those traits which make it a true bit
of mosaic in the mythology of Astraea. 2
The fabled 'fall of Lucifer' really signifies a process
similar to that which has been noticed in the case of
Saranyu. The morning star, like the morning light, as <span style="font-size: 12px; text-align: justify;">revealer of the deeds of darkness, becomes an avenger, </span></pre>
and by evolution an instigator of the evil it originally
disclosed and punished. It may be remarked also that
though we have inherited the phrase ' Demons of Dark-
ness/ it was an ancient rabbinical belief that the demons
went abroad in darkness not only because it facilitated
their attacks on man, but because being of luminous forms,
they could recognise each other better with a background
of darkness. </pre>
