Devil on Two Sticks (The), a farce by S. Foote; a satire on the medical profession.

DEVIL TO PAY, (The), a farce by C. Coffey.  Sir John Loverule has a termagant wife, and Zackel Jobson, a patient grissel.  Two spirits named Nadir and Ab’ishog transform these two wives for a time, so that the termagant is given to Jobson, and the patient wife to Sir John.  When my lady tries her tricks on Jobson, he takes his strap to her and soon reduces her to obedience.  After she is well reformed, the two are restored to their original husbands, and the shrew becomes an obedient, modest wife (died, 1745).

DEVIL’S AGE (The).  A wealthy man once promised to give a poor gentleman and his wife a large sum of money if at a given time they could tell him the devil’s age.  When the time came, the gentleman at his wife’s suggestion, plunged first into a barrel of honey and then into a barrel of feathers, and walked on all fours.  Presently up came his Satanic majesty, and said, “X and x years have I lived,” naming the exact number, “yet never saw I an animal like this.”  The gentlemen had heard enough, and was able to answer the question without difficulty.—­Rev. W. Webster, Basque Legends, 58 (1877).

DEVIL’S CHALICE (The).  A wealthy man gave a poor farmer a large sum of money on this condition:  at the end of a twelvemonth he was either to say “of what the devil made his chalice,” or else give his head to the devil.  The poor farmer as the time came round, hid himself in the crossroads, and presently the witches assembled from all sides.  Said one witch to another, “You know that Farmer So-and-so has sold his head to the devil, for he will never know of what the devil makes his chalice.  In fact I don’t know myself.”  “Don’t you?” said the other; “why, of the parings of finger-nails trimmed on Sundays.”—­The farmer was overjoyed, and when the time came round was quite ready with his answer.—­Rev. W. Webster, Basque Legends, 71 (1877).

DEVIL’S DYKE, BRIGHTON (The).  One day, as St. Cuthman was walking over the South Downs, and thinking to himself how completely he had rescued the whole country from paganism, he was accosted by his sable majesty in person.  “Ha, ha!” said the prince of darkness; “so you think by these churches and convents to put me and mine to your ban, do you?  Poor fool! why, this very night will I swamp the whole land with the sea.”  “Forewarned is forearmed,” thought St. Cuthman, and hies him to sister Celia, superior of a convent which then stood on the spot of the present Dyke House.  “Sister,” said the saint, “I love you well.  This night, for the grace of God, keep lights burning at the convent windows from midnight to day-break, and let masses be said by the holy sisterhood.”  At sundown came the devil with pickaxe and spade, mattock:  and shovel, and set to work in right good earnest to dig a dyke which should let the waters of the seas into