he appeared in the shape of a horse. 'I was in bed and the devil came to me and bid me obey him.'[1]
6. Sheep.—The sheep-disguise, which is perhaps a form of the goat, is usually found in France only. In 1453 'Guillaume Edeline, docteur en théologie, prieur de S. Germain en Laye, et auparavant Augustin, et religieux de certaines aultres ordres … confessa, de sa bonne et franche voulonté, avoir fait hommage audit ennemy en l'espèce et semblance d'ung mouton'.[2] Iaquema Paget and Antoine Gandillon in 1598 said that 'il prenoit la figure d'vn mouton noir, portant des cornes'.[3] In 1614 at Orleans Silvain Nevillon was induced to reveal all he knew; 'dit qu'il a veu le Diable en plusieurs façons, tantost comme vn bouc, ores comme vn gros mouton'.[4]
The rarer animal disguises are the deer and the bear. Of these the deer is found at Aberdeen in 1597, Andro Man 'confessis and affermis, thow saw Christsonday cum owt of the snaw in liknes of a staig';[5] at Auldearne in 1662, 'somtym he vold be lyk a stirk, a bull, a deir, a rae, or a dowg';[6] at Hartford, Connecticut, 1662, Rebecca Greensmith said that 'the devil first appeared to her in the form of a deer or fawn'.[7] The bear is still rarer, as I have found it only twice—once in Lorraine, and once in Lancashire. In 1589 'es haben die Geister auch etwann Lust sich in Gestalt eines Bären zu erzeigen'.[8] In 1613 Anne Chattox declared that the Devil 'came vpon this Examinate in the night time: and at diuerse and sundry times in the likenesse of a Beare, gaping as though he would haue wearied [worried] this Examinate. And the last time of all shee, this Examinate, saw him, was vpon Thursday last yeare but one, next before Midsummer day, in the euening, like a Beare, and this Examinate would not then speake vnto him, for the which the said Deuill pulled this Examinate downe.'[9]
