What part the Devil played in these amusements is well known to the antiquary, the old accounts containing particulars of the expenditure upon not only hair for the Evil One's wig, but also for canvas, of which to construct black shirts for the Satanic tag-rag, or, as the old scribes plainly put it, 'for the damned.' It is evident from the old records that Satan left the hands of his dresser an object compared with which the most hideous jack-in-the-box of the modern toy shop would be a vision of loveliness; and, as his chief occupations were those of roaring and yelling, and of suffering all sorts of indignities at the hands of the Vice, as does the pantaloon at the hands of the clown in a pantomime of to-day, it is easy to see that his _rôle_ was not a very dignified one. Everywhere the stage devil was simply the stage fool. Even in France, where the drama ever has been submitted to precise rules, 'there was,' as Albert Reville has remarked (_Histoire du Diable, ses origines, sa grandeur et sa decadence._ Strasbourg: 1870), 'a class of popular pieces called devilries (_diableries_), gross and often obscene masquerades, in which at least four devils took part.... In Germany also the devil was diverting on the stage. There exists an old Saxon Mystery of the Passion, in which Satan repeats, like a mocking echo, the last words of Judas who hangs himself; and when, in accordance with the sacred tradition, the traitor's bowels fall asunder, the Evil One gathers them into a basket, and, as he carries them away, sings a little melody appropriate to the occasion.' Undoubtedly these misrepresentations of the apostate angel helped to familiarise the popular mind with the idea of a personal devil going about veritably seeking whom he might devour; and although, when with the crowd in the presence of the Thespian ecclesiastics, people might feel quite at home with, and really enjoy, the company of the Evil One, away again on the dreary moor, or in the lonely hillside cottage, with the night wind howling at the door, fear would resume its wonted supremacy, and the feeling would be deepened and intensified by the memory of the horrid appearance of the stage Satan.
It is possible that in a great measure we owe to these performances the somewhat monotonous frequency with which, in the purely local Lancashire devil stories, the Evil One, who generally in the most stupid manner permits himself to be overreached, comes oft second best, for doubtless many of the traditions were moulded in accordance with the lot of Satan in the miracle plays, as, in their turn, these were, although perhaps indirectly, based upon the teachings of the church, and that, in its turn, upon the writings of the Fathers, some of whom, and notably Origen, did not hesitate to speak of the Redemption even as due in no small degree to Satanic stupidity, a view so lastingly predominant in the Church that as Reville has said, 'la poesie ecclésiastique, la prédication populaire, des enseignements pontificaux même le repandirent, le dramatisèrent, le consacrèrent partout.'