p the leaves from
the trees, is the same as the furious chase of the Erlking Odin or the
Burckar Vittikab. He is Dionysos, who causes red wine to flow from
the dry wood, alike on the deck of the Tyrrhenian pirate-ship and in
Auerbach's cellar at Leipzig. He is Wayland, the smith, a skilful
worker in metals and a wonderful architect, like the classic fire-god
Hephaistos or Vulcan; and, like Hephaistos, he is lame from the effects
of his fall from heaven. From the lightning-god Thor he obtains his red
beard, his pitchfork, and his power over thunderbolts; and, like that
ancient deity, he is in the habit of beating his wife behind the door
when the rain falls during sunshine. Finally, he takes a hint from
Poseidon and from the swan-maidens, and appears as a water-imp or Nixy
(whence probably his name of Old Nick), and as the Davy (deva) whose
"locker" is situated at the bottom of the sea. [117]

According to the Scotch divines of the seventeenth century, the Devil is
a learned scholar and profound thinker. Having profited by six thousand
years of intense study and meditation, he has all science, philosophy,
and theology at his tongue's end; and, as his skill has increased with
age, he is far more than a match for mortals in cunning. [118] Such,
however, is not the view taken by mediaeval mythology, which usually
represents his stupidity as equalling his malignity. The victory of
Hercules over Cacus is repeated in a hundred mediaeval legends in which
the Devil is overreached and made a laughing-stock. The germ of this
notion may be found in the blinding of Polyphemos by Odysseus, which
is itself a victory of the sun-hero over the night-demon, and which
curiously reappears in a Middle-Age story narrated by Mr. Cox. "The
Devil asks a man who is moulding buttons what he may be doing; and when
the man answers that he is moulding eyes, asks him further whether he
can give him a pair of new eyes. He is told to come again another day;
and when he makes his appearance accordingly, the man tells him that the
operation cannot be performed rightly unless he is first tightly bound
with his back fastened to a bench. While he is thus pinioned he asks the
man's name. The reply is Issi (`himself'). When the lead is melted, the
Devil opens his eyes wide to receive the deadly stream. As soon as he is
blinded, he starts up in agony, bearing away the bench to which he had
been bound; and when some workpeople in the fields ask him who had thus