rmations:--

Soon he shed
His hellish slough, and many a subtle wile
Was his to seem a heavenly spirit to man,
First, he a hermit, sore subdued in flesh,
O'er a cold cruse of water and a crust,
Poured out meet prayers abundant. Then he changed
Into a maid when she first dreams of man,
And from beneath two silken eyelids sent,
The sidelong light of two such wondrous eyes,
That all the saints grew sinners . . .
Then a professor of God's word he seemed,
And o'er a multitude of upturned eyes
Showered blessed dews, and made the pitchy path,
Down which howl damned Spirits, seem the bright
Thrice hallowed way to Heaven; yet grimly through
The glorious veil of those seducing shapes,
Frowned out the fearful Spirit.

S. Anthony, in the wilderness, as related in his life by S. Athanasius,
had many conflicts in the night with the powers of darkness, Satan
appearing personally to him, to batter him from the strongholds of his
faith. S. Dunstan, in his cell, was tempted by the Devil in the form of
a lovely woman, but a grip of his nose with a heated tongs made him
bellow out, and cease his nightly visits to that holy man. Ezra Peden,
as related by Allan Cunningham, was also tempted by one who "was indeed
passing fair," and the longer he looked on her she became the
lovelier--"_owre lovely for mere flesh and blood_," and poor Peden
succumbed to her wiles.

From the book of Tobit it would appear that an Evil Spirit slew the first
seven husbands of Sara from jealousy and lust, in the vain hope of
securing her for himself. In Giraldus Cambrensis's _Itinerary through
Wales_, Bohn's ed., p. 411 demons are shown to possess those qualities
which are ascribed to them in the Apocryphal book of Tobit.

There is nothing new, as far as I am aware, respecting the doings of the
Great Enemy of mankind in Welsh Folk-Lore. His tactics in the
Principality evince no originality. They are the usual weapons used by
him everywhere, and these he found to be sufficient for his purposes even
in Wales.

Gladly would I here put down my pen and leave the uncongenial task of
treating further about the spirits of darkness to others, but were I to
do so, I should be guilty of a grave omission, for, as I have already
said, ghosts, goblins, spirits, and other beings allied to Satan, occupy
a prominent place in Welsh Folk-Lore.

Of a winter's evening, by the faint light of a peat