m at a certain time and on
certain conditions, where 'the gowd mine is in Largo-Law,' especially
enjoining that the horn sounded for the housing of the cows at the
adjoining farm of Balmain should not blow. Every precaution having been
taken, the ghost was true to his tryst; but, unhappily, when he was
about to divulge the desired secret, Tammie Norrie, the cowherd of
Balmain, blew a blast, whereupon the ghost vanished, with the
denunciation:

'Woe to the man that blew the horn,
For out of the spot he shall ne'er be borne.'

The unlucky horn-blower was struck dead, and, as it was found impossible
to remove the body, a cairn of stones was raised over it."[86]

[86] See Jones's "Credulities, Past and Present," 1880, p. 133.

Steevens considers that when Macbeth (iii. 2) says:

"Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;
Whiles night's black agents to their preys do rouse,"

he refers to those demons who were supposed to remain in their several
places of confinement all day, but at the close of it were released;
such, indeed, as are mentioned in "The Tempest" (v. 1), as rejoicing "to
hear the solemn curfew," because it announced the hour of their freedom.

Among other superstitions we may quote one in the "Merchant of Venice"
(iii. 1), where Salanio says: "Let me say 'amen' betimes, lest the devil
cross my prayer."

Of the devils mentioned by Shakespeare may be noted the following:

_Amaimon_ is one of the chief, whose dominion is on the north side of
the infernal gulf. He might be bound or restrained from doing hurt from
the third hour till noon, and from the ninth hour till evening. In the
"Merry Wives of Windsor" (ii. 2) Ford mentions this devil, and in "1
Henry IV." (ii. 4) Falstaff says: "That same mad fellow of the north,
Percy; and he of Wales, that gave Amaimon the bastinado, and made
Lucifer cuckold."[87]

[87] See Scot's "Discovery of Witchcraft," 1584, p. 393;
Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," p. 264.

The north was always supposed to be the particular habitation of bad
spirits. Milton, therefore, assembles the rebel angels in the north. In
"1 Henry VI." (v. 3), La Pucelle invokes the aid of the spirits:

"Under the lordly monarch of the north."

_Barbason._ This demon would seem to be the same as "Marbas, alias
Barbas," who, as Scot[88] informs us, "is a great president, and
appeareth in the forme of a mightie lion; but at the commandment of a
conjurer co