The people who tell folktales are not always clear in their conception of the supernatural creatures whom their heroes must meet in combat. In the stories of the return from the dead which have just been considered, the gruesome opponent is certainly no mere spectre, but has enough solidity to be dangerous and often unconquerable in combat. But just what these vampires or wandering dead men look like is never clearly stated. The same situation is found in tales about the devil.

Three or four different concepts seem to be thoroughly confused when the term "devil" is used by the teller of tales. In Germany and Scandinavian countries, it frequently means nothing more than the vague word "ogre." Thus when they speak of the "stupid devil" they may equally well say "the stupid ogre" or "the stupid giant." Again the term "devil" is frequently equivalent to the Oriental "demon," or even the "djinn" of the Arabian Nights. The English usage is likely to be somewhat narrower than those just suggested. "Devil" is likely to have some connection with Satan, the devil of Christian theology, and to have the outward appearances made familiar by long centuries of medieval writers and artists. Indispensable as part of his equipment are his cloven hoofs, his tail, and usually his pointed ears—the whole possibly a reminiscence of Pan and the satyrs of old Greek legend. [26]

Except when conceived of as an ogre, the devil does not usually engage his opponent in open combat. The power which he exerts is normally super-natural.

Most "devil" stories consist of a single incident. Such, for example, is The [p. 43] Snares of the Evil One (Type 810), in which the man who is promised to the devil is permitted by the priest to spend the night when the devil should come for him in the church. The priest draws about the man a ring which the devil may not enter. The man resists the devil's temptation to come out and in this way saves himself. This little story is hardly known outside of Scandinavia and the Baltic states, but is very popular there.

Entirely confined to the Baltic states are two other simple tales of adventures with the devil. In one of these he takes service as a mower and works under an evil overseer. The devil has a magic sickle and mows so fast that when the overseer tries to keep up with him he dies of exhaustion (Type 820). In the other (Type 815) a rich man's money is buried in his grave within the church. When the devil comes to get the money, the cobbler draws a circle about him and keeps him away. The cobbler himself steals the money and nails the devil fast.

Though most of these stories of the devil as an adversary are short and simple, they are not always so. The Devil's Riddle (Type 812), a tale especially popular in Germany and the Baltic states and sometimes heard in southern and western Europe, has a complex plot and frequently an elaborate treatment. It begins with the well-known devil's contract, by the terms of which the hero (sometimes three heroes) promises himself to the devil at the end of a certain time if he cannot solve the riddles which the devil propounds. The devil has various objects which appear to be different from what they really are. The hero must guess their real nature. For example, what really seems to be a horse is a he-goat. Some of the other illusions are a piece of cloth (a goat-skin), a gold cup (a cup of pitch), roast meat (a dead dog), a spoon (a whale rib), a wine glass (a horse's hoof), and the like. Sometimes the devil asks seemingly impossible questions such as What is sweeter than honey? What is softer than swan's down? or What is harder than stone? Sometimes he asks for symbolic interpretations of the numbers one to seven. Or he may set the hero a series of impossible tasks. It will be seen that this part of the tale offers opportunity for large variation. The methods whereby the hero learns the solution are much more uniform, for most of them depend upon the fact that in some way the hero overhears the devil. Sometimes he masks and sometimes he hides with the help of the devil's grandmother. If it is tasks he must perform, the hero gets the help of some supernatural being. In all cases he succeeds in outwitting the devil and escaping from the fulfillment of the contract.

Certain of the details of this story appear elsewhere. The contract in which the hero, like Faust, promises himself to the devil forms the introduction to several other well-known complex tales. [27] Besides these there is to be found a considerable number of short anecdotes, consisting of only a single motif, in which the man who sells his soul to the devil saves it by deceit, usually [p. 44] by imposing some impossible task (Types 1170-1199). The devil in these stories is stupid and the principal point of these tales is the contrast between him and the clever hero. All these stories are popular in Scandinavia and the Baltic countries, though most of them are not unknown in the rest of Europe. Such is the tale of the man who is to belong to the devil as soon as he has sold all his goods, but if he has any goods that no one will buy he is to go free. He puts an evil old woman in a glass case and offers her for sale. When the devil sees her, he realizes that no one will buy her, and releases the man (Type 1170).

Among the impossible tasks assigned the devil in stories of this kind are catching rabbits in nets set out in high trees (Type 1171), collecting all stones from the brook or field, making knots from drops of spilled brandy, making a rope from sand, straightening curly hair, catching a man's breath, pumping out water from the whole sea, or catching water in a sieve (Types 1171-1180). Other kinds of cheats are perpetrated on the devil. Having agreed to give the devil a part of his body, the man gives him a paring from his fingernail (Type 1181).

Three other deceptive bargains are The Level Bushel, The Last Leaf, and The First Crop (Types 1182, 1184, and 1185). In the first, the student is to come into the devil's power if, at the end of a year, he does not at least return for the heaping bushel of gold a level one. The student immediately hands back the level bushel and keeps the surplus. In the second the man is to pay the devil when the last leaf falls from the tree. It is an oak tree and the leaf never falls. The oak also figures in the third of these stories. The man is to pay the devil as soon as he harvests his first crop, but he plants acorns and the devil must wait long. These three tales are widely distributed and popular over most of Europe.

Frequently the escape from the devil takes place at the last minute. The hero asks for a delay while he repeats a prayer for the last time (Type 1199). The man arranges never to finish the prayer and the devil is cheated. Sometimes other last requests are made, to be allowed to finish dressing or the like. [28]

Most of these short anecdotes about escape from the devil belong primarily to the oral tradition, but the tale of The Devil and the Advocate (Type 1186) has received first-rate literary treatment. Chaucer uses it as his "Friar's Tale," but it had already appeared more than a century before in Der Strieker's Pfaffe Amis. In spite of its primary literary association, the anecdote is also handed around by word of mouth and has been so reported from Scandinavian countries. The devil refuses to take anything which is not offered him with the whole heart. He hears the advocate cursed for fraud ("The devil take you!") with such sincerity that he carries him off.

The tales about the devil thus far mentioned have assumed that the devil [p. 45] was wandering about upon the face of the earth. We shall find several stories, treated later in other connections, in which the devil is found in hell. [29] One short anecdote of this kind tells how the devil is deceived into putting on "the chains of Solomon." He is thus bound and must stay in hell. [30]

We shall find the devil in two other connections. As mentioned once before, he is sometimes conceived of as a stupid ogre, [31] as in some of the tales we have already met. Sometimes, however, the devil is by no means stupid and turns out to be a very valuable ally and helper of the hero. In such stories [32] the devil's cleverness is emphasized and not, as in the tales we have just discussed, his malevolence or stupidity.