fortune were
the direct work of the devil; God, who was all good, could not produce
either. Luther gives a long history of how he was called to a parish
priest, who complained of the devil's having created a disturbance in
his house by throwing the pots and pans about, and so forth, and of
how he advised the priest to exorcise the fiend by invoking his own
authority as a pastor of the Church.

At the Wartburg, Luther complained of having been very much troubled
by the Satanic arts. When he was at work upon his translation of the
Bible, or upon his sermons, or engaged in his devotions, the devil was
always making disturbances on the stairs or in the room. One day,
after a hard spell of study, he lay down to sleep in his bed, when the
devil began pelting him with hazel-nuts, a sack of which had been
brought to him a few hours before by an attendant. He invoked,
however, the name of Christ, and lay down again in bed. There were
other more curious and more doubtful recipes for driving away Satan
and his emissaries. Luther is never tired of urging that contemptuous
treatment and rude chaff are among the most efficacious methods.

There was, he relates, a poor soothsayer, to whom the devil came in
visible form, and offered great wealth provided that he would deny
Christ and never more do penance. The devil provided him with a
crystal, by which he could foretell events, and thus become rich. This
he did; but Nemesis awaited him, for the devil deceived him one day,
and caused him to denounce certain innocent persons as thieves. In
consequence, he was thrown into prison, where he revealed the compact
that he had made, and called for a confessor. The two chief forms in
which the devil appeared were, according to Luther, those of a snake
and a sheep. He further goes into the question of the population of
devils in different countries. On the top of the Pilatus at Luzern, he
says, is a black pond, which is one of the devil's favourite abodes.
In Luther's own country there is also a high mountain, the
Poltersberg, with a similar pond. When a stone is thrown into this
pond, a great tempest arises, which often devastates the whole
neighbourhood. He also alleges Prussia to be full of evil spirits
(!!).

Devilish changelings, Luther said, were often placed by Satan in the
cradles of human children. "Some maids he often plunges into the
water, and keeps them with him until they have borne a child." These
children are placed in the be