on cathedrals frequently represent men kneeling down before the devil, and devoting themselves to him as his servants.”  In our own country, such compacts were generally made at midnight in some lonely churchyard, or amid the ruins of some castle.  But fortunately for mankind, by resorting to spells and counterspells the binding effects of these “devil-bonds” as they have been termed were, in most cases, rendered ineffectual, the devil thereby losing the advantage.

It is noteworthy that the wisdom of the serpent is frequently outwitted by a crafty woman, or a cunning priest.  A well-known Lancashire tradition gives a humorous account of how the devil was on one occasion deluded by the shrewdness of a clever woman.  Barely three miles from Clitheroe, on the high road to Gisburne, stood a public house with this title, “The Dule upo’ Dun,” which means “The Devil upon Dun” (horse).  The story runs that a poor tailor sold himself to Satan for seven years on his granting him certain wishes, after which term, according to the contract, signed, as is customary, with the victim’s own blood, his soul was to become “the devil’s own.”  When the fatal day arrived, on the advice of his wife, he consulted “the holy father of Salley” in his extremity.  At last the hour came when the Evil One claimed his victim, who tremblingly contended that the contract was won from him by fraud and dishonest pretences, and had not been fulfilled.  He even ventured to hint at his lack of power to bestow riches, or any great gift, on which Satan was goaded into granting him another wish.  “Then,” said the trembling tailor, “I wish thou wert riding back again to thy quarters on yonder dun horse, and never able to plague me again, or any other poor wretch whom thou has gotten into thy clutches!”

The words were no sooner uttered than the devil, with a roar which was heard as far as Colne, went away rivetted to the back of this dun horse, the tailor watching his departure almost beside himself for joy.  He lived for many years in health and affluence, and, at his death, one of his relatives having bought the house where he resided, turned it into an inn, having for his sign, “The Dule upo’ Dun.”  On it was depicted “Old Hornie” mounted on a scraggy dun horse, without saddle or bridle, “the terrified steed being off and away at full gallop from the door, while a small hilarious tailor with shears and measures,” viewed his departure with anything but grief or disapprobation.[34] The authors of “Lancashire Legends,” describing this old house, inform us that it was “one of those ancient gabled black and white edifices, now fast disappearing under the march of improvement.  Many windows of little lozenge-shaped panes set in lead, might be seen here in all the various stages of renovation and decay.  Over the door, till lately, swung the old and quaint sign, attesting the truth of the tradition.”