Superstition, in assigning to the devil a bodily shape and presence, endeavoured to make him horrible, and instead made him ridiculous. For this no doubt the monkish ceremonies of the middle ages are, as is commonly alleged, much to blame. The fiend was introduced into shows and dramatic representations with horns, tail, and the hoof of one of the lower animals; the representation was seized upon by the popular fancy, and exaggerated till it became a caricature. The human mind takes pleasure in mixing the ludicrous with the terrible, and in seeing that of which it is afraid made contemptible. There is, as is well known, but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and, in being reduced to a bug-bear, the impersonation of evil has only come under the operation of a common law. One bad effect to be traced to the travesty is, that men’s attention is diverted from the power of evil as the spirit that now worketh strife, lying, dishonesty, and the countless forms of vice, and the foul fiend is become a sort of goblin, to frighten children and lonely travellers.

In Gaelic the exaggeration is not carried to the same lengths as in English. There is nothing said about the fiend’s having horns or tail. He has made his appearance in shape of a he-goat, but his horns have not attracted so much attention, or inspired such terror, as his voice, which bears a horrible resemblance to the bleating of a goat. A native of the Island of Coll is said to have got a good view of him in a hollow, and was positive that he was crop-eared (corc-chluasach).90 He has often a chain clanking after him. In Celtic, as in German superstition, he has usually a horse’s hoof, but also sometimes a pig’s foot. This latter peculiarity, which evidently had its origin in the incident of the Gadarean swine, and in the pig being unclean under the ceremonial law, explains the cloven hoof always ascribed to him in English popular tales. In Scripture, the goat, as pointed out by Sir Thomas More, formed the sin offering, and is an emblem of bad men. The reason why a horse’s hoof has been assigned to him is not so apparent. In the Book of Job, Satan is described as “going to and fro in the earth”; and the red horses, speckled and white, which the prophet Zechariah (i. 8) saw among the myrtle trees, were explained to him to be those whom “the Lord hath sent to walk to and fro through the earth.” The similarity of description may be casual, but it is on grounds, equally incidental and slight, that many of the inferences of superstition are based.

In addition to his Scripture names, the arch-fiend is known in Gaelic by the following titles:

In the North Highlands he is also known as Bidein, Dithean, Bradaidh. It is said that Connan was a name given to him, and that aisling connain, a libidinous dream, means literally ‘a devil’s dream.’ The name must have been very local. There is a fable about Connan and his twelve sons pulling a plant in the peat moss, in which the name denoted the wren, and there was a St. Connan, whose memory is preserved in Cill-Chonnain, a burying-ground in Rannoch, and Feill-Connain, the autumn market at Dalmally in Glenorchy.

The occasions on which the devil has appeared in a bodily shape, have been at meetings of witches; at card-playing, which is the reading of his books; when he comes to claim his prey; and when summoned by masons or magicians. He is apt to appear to persons ready to abandon their integrity, and to haunt premises which are soon to be the scene of signal calamities. He sometimes comes in unaccountable shapes and in lonely places for no conceivable purpose but to frighten people.

The following tales will illustrate the character of his appearances and the notions popularly entertained regarding him.