The Devil

Satan. The Devil. Beelzebub. Lucifer. The Great Deceiver. Old Scratch. Call him what you like, The Devil has equally terrified, tormented, and fascinated mankind for millennia. Surprisingly, given his place in Christian religion and Western culture at large, there is precious little about his dark majesty in the Bible. The Old Testament has only ten references to him, and though there are more in the New Testament, his traditional biography is actually from the Apocrypha (non-canonical religious texts), where the Book of Enoch describes how Satan and his rebel angels angered God through their pride and were thrown from heaven.

This is the story of Satan popularised through Christian teaching, backed by an allusive passage in the Book of Revelation. However, whilst the Bible is not so interested in the fallen angel, mankind has been far more preoccupied with him. People were frightened of The Devil, and many events and landscape features were attributed to him. Many people also claimed to have seen Lucifer in everyday life, generally having a rare old time in pubs or the theatre. So let’s have a look at what he’s been up to since he was last seen tempting Christ in the wilderness.

Satan Bends a Spire in Chesterfield

The Church of St Mary and All Saints, Chesterfield, is a 14th-century church with an eccentrically-crooked spire that one church historian has praised as ‘the most famous architectural distortion north of Pisa’. Its peculiar shape is widely-attributed to Beelzebub. In one version, Satan was sat on the church tower, with his tail twisted round the spire for support. A virtuous bride was getting married that day, and the event was so unusual that Satan turned round, jaw agape, to stare at the marvel. As he did so, the spire twisted with him, and was never the same again.

Another version of the story has The Devil sat in the same position, probably looking for people to trick into sin, whilst a church service was taking place beneath him. Suddenly, a whiff of incense came from the church, making him unleash a thunderous sneeze. The force of Old Nick lurching forward bent the spire into its current form. Another tradition relates how Satan was one day having his hooves re-shod by a blacksmith at nearby Bolow when a misplaced nail made him leap away in pain, kicking out at the unfortunate church spire as he sailed overhead.

Of course, there is a rational explanation for all this spire-bending. It was long-supposed that the spire was built by poor-quality workmen after the Black Death, which severely reduced the labour pool. Whilst there may be some truth in this, the accepted architectural theory is far more prosaic. It is thought that the workmen used unseasoned timber, which buckled and distorted under the weight of the lead cladding. The spire is exposed to sunlight on its south side every day, which has made the 33-tonnes of lead heat up and expand more than the north side, gradually twisting the eminence.

Devil’s Punch Bowl

The Devil’s Punch Bowl is a large hollow of sandy heath which forms a natural amphitheatre in Surrey, UK. Such an unusual landscape feature has inspired many folk tales and legends, as people sought to explain how this came to be. Chiefly, they wondered, who could be big enough to make such a large, circular structure? Most naturally suspected Satan. It is said that Satan scooped out large clods of earth with his hands to fling at an enemy, in some versions the Norse God, Thor, and the scale of his excavations left a permanent scar on the landscape.

Another version has Satan so infuriated by the many churches built in Sussex during the Middle Ages that he tried to dig a tunnel from The Channel to flood the area, but was scared by a cock crowing and jumped away, creating the Devil’s Punch Bowl when he landed. The name itself can be explained by the weather. On cold, autumnal mornings, mist often collects in the hollow, and then spills out over the rim, much like the punch bowls seen at dinner parties. Who else but The Devil would need such a large container for all his booze?

Alternatively, Satan had nothing to do with it at all, and the Punch Bowl was created by spring water eroding the local sandstone over thousands of years, making it subside more than the wider area. The locale, however, has a longstanding association with the darker side of life. The road from London to Portsmouth used to run along the rim, and became the haunt of highwaymen in the 18th century. Three men were hanged at nearby Gibbet Hill for the notorious robbery and murder of an unidentified sailor in 1786. Perhaps Lucifer was in the area, after all.

Devil’s Dyke

In the aforementioned story of Satan trying to build a tunnel to flood Sussex, he succeeded in creating another interesting landscape feature before making the Devil’s Punch Bowl under the weight of his landing. He had vowed to do so in a single night, but was caught in the act by a pious local woman. She prayed for a cock to crow earlier than dawn, and when the Devil heard it, he immediately abandoned his task. However, the towering ridges of earth he had thrown up around him were never moved, and the tunnel became known as the Devil’s Dyke.

Whilst digging the ditch to wash away the churches, The Devil carelessly flung large bits of earth over his shoulder, which became hills in their own right, and one even became the Isle of Wight. Most legends agree on the purpose of the Devil’s Dyke, but there are some variants on precisely why he stopped. In one, he simply stubbed his hoof on a rock, which he kicked away to Hove in fury before abandoning his project altogether (what a diva). Another variation replaces the old woman with St Dunstan, whom we will meet later in this article.

Another legend simply has the Devil’s Dyke as a gigantic hoof-print caused by The Devil appearing in his goat-form and intending to crush Sussex, Godzilla-style. Upon arriving, he smelled the salty sea-breeze, and feared getting his coat wet. His vanity made him abandon the project altogether, notwithstanding a single hoof-print. Again, there is a prosaic explanation of water erosion disintegrating away an area of soft rock, but this need not detract from the Devil’s Dyke’s fascinating history. The site provided a lookout post for pre-Iron Age man, and hill forts were built to protect surrounding settlements and farmland.

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A Cameo in Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus

Puritans and other miserable killjoys, such as Adolf Hitler, have long seen the theatre as a den of sin. But did you know that Satan once appeared on stage? Dr. Faustus is a play by the Elizabethan playwright, Christopher Marlowe (1564-93). It tells the tale of the titular doctor, a scholar at the University of Wittenburg. Dr. Faustus has an incurable lust for knowledge and power, and one he has mastered every known discipline his research inevitably leads him to become interested in the dark arts. He succeeds in summoning one of Satan’s little helpers, but cannot enslave him.

Faustus thus decides to sell his soul to The Devil, and receives great powers. He soon regrets his pact, however, and the end of the play sees Faustus dragged to hell to fulfil his part of the bargain. We have to remember that this was very controversial for the period. Witchcraft had been made a capital offence in England in 1563, and witch trials took place through the Elizabethan period. People were absolutely terrified of witches and The Devil in general, and so enacting a pact on stage was a bold move that both titillated and petrified in equal measure.

In one staging of Dr. Faustus in the early 17th century, it is reputed that the performance was interrupted by an unexpected guest. In his anti-theatre polemic, Histriomastix, the Puritan William Prynne related that ‘the visible apparition of The Devil [appeared] on the Stage at the Bel-savage Playhouse in Queen Elizabeth’s days (to the great amazement both of the Actors and Spectators) whiles they were there profanely playing the History of Faustus (the truth of which I have heard from many now alive, who well remember it) there being some distracted with that fearful sight’. Bravo, bravo, darling!

Robert Johnson Buys the Blues

It is not just theatre that The Devil enjoys. As they say, The Devil has all the best tunes, and these next two examples will prove just that. In the late 1920s, a young man worked on the Dockery Plantation, Mississippi. He didn’t want to be a farm labourer all his life, but longed to be able to play the blues. He made no secret of his desire, and his co-workers told him to make his way to a nearby crossroads at midnight. That very night, the blues were born, and the young man, Robert Johnson, became a star.

There were no witnesses to the pact, but another bluesman, Henry Goodman, later had a vision that told the tale. ‘The man stands up, tall, barrel-chested, and black as the forever-closed eyes of Robert Johnson’s stillborn baby… he says, “Stand up, Robert Johnson… [do] you want to play that guitar like nobody ever played it before? Make a sound nobody ever heard before? You want to be the King of the Delta Blues and have all the whiskey and women you want?”‘ The Devil had his mongrel dog let out a plaintive howl to demonstrate the sound of the blues.

‘The dog ain’t for sale, Robert Johnson, but the sound can be yours. That’s the sound of the Delta Blues’, said The Devil. Johnson sold his soul on the spot, and music was changed forever. Johnson later immortalised the encounter in the song, ‘Cross Road Blues’: ‘I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees asked the Lord above have mercy now, save poor Bob if you please”‘. The tale of someone selling their soul to The Devil in exchange for some earthly power recalls Dr. Faustus, testifying both to the power of the folk motif and man’s fear of sin.