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The parliament of devils, which we find in this story, was taken from the mystery-plays where the ruler of hell is represented as holding occasional receptions when he listens to the reports of their recent achievements on his behalf, and consults their opinion on matters of state. The source for the parliament of devils is the apocryphal book Evangelium Nicodemi.
The notion that the great sad adversary of Almighty Goodness is settled in a modern London hotel, with a private cook of his own, and a privately engaged bath of his own, carries the reader away from the original conception to the burlesque vulgar and flagrant of the mystery-plays of the Middle Ages; and the devotion of supernatural power to the preparations for a suburban garden-party is purely ludicrous.
One is, that if we glance back at past beliefs and their correlative feelings, as shown in Dante's poem, in the mystery-plays of the middle ages, in St. Bartholomew massacres, in burnings for heresy, we get proof that in comparatively modern times right and wrong meant little else than subordination or insubordination to a divine ruler primarily, and under him to a human ruler.
When the mystery-plays of the centuries gone by were produced in Europe, the tree most like to what these good people thought was the real sycamore furnished the branches used in the scene-setting and it was either the oriental plane, or the sycamore-leaved maple that was chosen, as convenient.
Satan’s red beard recalls the Scandinavian god Donar or Thor, who is of Phoenician origin. Judas was always represented in mediaeval mystery-plays with a red beard; and down to the present day red hair is the mark of a suspicious character. The devil also appears as yellow, and even blue, but never as white or green. The yellow devil is but a shade less bright than his fiery brother.
There is a kind of audacity in their use of the Scriptures, which reminds one of the freedom of mediaeval mystery-plays. Probably this boldness began, not in scepticism or in irreverence, but in honest familiar faith. It certainly seems very odd to us in England, and probably expressions often get a laugh which would pass unnoticed in America.
The whites, led by the king of Spain, conquer in the combat, and the "bula" is taken and freed amid general rejoicing. At the beginning and end, the Christians declaim a kind of prologue or introduction in accordance with the object of the festa, and a salutation and thanks to those assisting at the end. In one or two places there are also survivals of mediæval mystery-plays.
This idea has probably been derived from the crooked lightning flashes. The devil’s mother in the mediaeval German mystery-plays walks on crutches. Asmodeus, the Persian demon Aeshma daeva, also had a lame foot. In Le Sage’s book Le Diable boiteux Asmodeus appears as a limping gentleman, who uses two sticks as crutches.
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