oly Roman Emperor quaffed
a gallon or two of the new beverage than he made Gambrinus Duke of
Brabant and Count of Flanders, and then it was the fiddler's turn to
laugh at the discomfiture of his old sweetheart. Gambrinus kept clear of
women, says the legend, and so lived in peace. For thirty years he sat
beneath his belfry with the chimes, meditatively drinking beer with his
nobles and burghers around him. Then Beelzebub sent Jocko, one of his
imps, with orders to bring back Gambrinus before midnight. But Jocko
was, like Swiveller's Marchioness, ignorant of the taste of beer, never
having drunk of it even in a sip, and the Flemish schoppen were too much
for him. He fell into a drunken sleep, and did not wake up until noon
next day, at which he was so mortified that he had not the face to go
back to hell at all. So Gambrinus lived on tranquilly for a century or
two, and drank so much beer that he turned into a beer-barrel. [121]

The character of gullibility attributed to the Devil in these legends
is probably derived from the Trolls, or "night-folk," of Northern
mythology. In most respects the Trolls resemble the Teutonic elves
and fairies, and the Jinn or Efreets of the Arabian Nights; but their
pedigree is less honourable. The fairies, or "White Ladies," were
not originally spirits of darkness, but were nearly akin to the
swan-maidens, dawn-nymphs, and dryads, and though their wrath was to
be dreaded, they were not malignant by nature. Christianity, having no
place for such beings, degraded them into something like imps; the most
charitable theory being that they were angels who had remained neutral
during Satan's rebellion, in punishment for which Michael expelled them
from heaven, but has left their ultimate fate unannounced until the day
of judgment. The Jinn appear to have been similarly degraded on the rise
of Mohammedanism. But the Trolls were always imps of darkness. They are
descended from the Jotuns, or Frost-Giants of Northern paganism, and
they correspond to the Panis, or night-demons of the Veda. In many Norse
tales they are said to burst when they see the risen sun. [122] They eat
human flesh, are ignorant of the simplest arts, and live in the deepest
recesses of the forest or in caverns on the hillside, where the sunlight
never penetrates. Some of these characteristics may very likely have
been suggested by reminiscences of the primeval Lapps, from whom the
Aryan invaders wrested the dominion of Europe. [