ABSTRACT
The magical literature of the Middle Ages contains many legends of men who in order to obtain wealth or power or possession of a certain woman, made a contract with the Devil who, having given them what they coveted, came at the end of the period agreed upon and seized them and carried them off to hell. The contract was said to be written on parchment or paper with the blood of the man who applied to the Devil for assistance, and when he had signed his name the Devil carried off the document and placed it among his archives. That men could and did make contracts with the Devil was commonly believed in the East and in the West, for it was argued that if men could obtain their heart's desire from the Archangels of God, why should they not be able to do so from the Devil himself, or from his chief ministers? Usually the man who made the contract paid the penalty and the Devil got his due, but a few instances are known in which certain Christian saints have succeeded in cheating him out of his prey. For when the powers of evil were carrying away his soul to hell, the saints intervened and snatched it from their hands (or paws), and conveyed it elsewhere. Few, if any, of the mediaeval legends make the Devil give back the bond or contract and release the man from his obligation to him, probably because no one believed that the Devil would act like a charitable creditor. One interesting instance of the Devil's charity in this respect is on record and that is found in the Ethiopian Senkesâr or Book of Saints of the Ethiopian Church. The Ethiopians, like the Egyptian Christians (Copts), believed in a personal Devil who was able to take any and every form or shape at will, and who could travel with equal ease through earth, air, and water. In the pictures which illustrate their manuscripts he is usually represented as a huge black man, with large fiery eyes and terrible teeth, with an enormously long body and long thin legs, and paws with claws. On his head is a pair of horns, and he has a long tail. The lesser fiends who perform his will have animals' heads and also tails; they, like their master, possessed an overpoweringly filthy smell, by which their comings and goings could be detected. But the Devil, whether called Diabolos, or Satan, or Masṭêmâ, took form of a man at will, and possessing great cunning and skill in trafficking and bargaining with men frequently succeeded in buying their souls from them.
