In many religions the disguising of the principal personage—whether god or priest—as an animal is well known. The custom is very ancient—such disguised human beings are found even among the palaeolithic drawings in France; and on a slate palette belonging to the late pre-dynastic period of Egypt there is a representation of a man disguised as a jackal and playing on a pipe.156 The ritual disguise as an animal is condemned, with great particularity, as devilish, in the Liber Poenitentialis of Theodore of the seventh century (see supra, p. 21), showing that it continued in force after the conversion of England to an outward appearance of Christianity. From the analogy of other religions in which the custom occurs, it would appear that it is a ritual for the promotion of fertility; the animal represented being either the sacred animal of the tribe or the creature most used for food.

      The suggestion that the Devil was a man, wearing either an animal's skin or a mask in the form of an animal's head as a ritual disguise, accounts as nothing else can for the witches' evidence as to his appearance and his changes of form. A confusion, however, exists from the fact that the witches, and therefore the recorders, usually spoke of the familiars as the Devil; but in almost every case the disguised man can, on examination of the evidence, be distinguished from the animal familiar.

      The animal forms in which the Devil most commonly appeared were bull, cat, dog, goat, horse, and sheep. A few curious facts come to light on tabulating these forms; i.e. the Devil appears as a goat or a sheep in France only; he is never found in any country as a hare, though this was the traditional form for a witch to assume; nor is he found as a toad, though this was a common form for the familiar; the fox and the ass also are unknown forms; and in Western Europe the pig is an animal almost entirely absent from all the rites and ceremonies as well as from the disguises of the Devil.

The witches never admitted in so many words that the Devil was a man disguised, but their evidence points strongly to the fact. In some cases the whole body was disguised, in others a mask was worn, usually over the face. The wearing of the mask is indicated partly by descriptions of its appearance, and partly by the description of the Devil's voice. The Lorraine witches in 1589 said that the Devils 'können nimmermehr die Menschliche Stimme so aussdrücklich nachreden, dass man nicht leicht daran mercke, dass es eine gemachte falsche Stimme sey. Nicolaea Ganatia, und fast alle andere sagen, dass sie eine Stimme von sich geben, gleich denen, so den Kopff in ein Fass oder zerbrochenen Hafen stecken und daraus reden. Auch geben sie etwann eine kleine leise Stimme von sich.'157 The North Berwick Devil in 1590 was purposely disguised out of all recognition: 'The Devil start up in the pulpit, like a mickle black man, with a black beard sticking out like a goat's beard; and a high ribbed nose, falling down sharp like the beak of a hawk; with a long rumpill' (tail).158 This was Barbara Napier's account; Agnes Sampson describes the same personage, 'The deuell caused all the company to com and kiss his ers, quhilk they said was cauld like yce; his body was hard lyk yrn, as they thocht that handled him; his faice was terrible, his noise lyk the bek of an egle, gret bournyng eyn: his handis and legis wer herry, with clawis vpon his handis and feit lyk the griffon, and spak with a how voice.'159 Boguet states that 'on demanda à George Gandillon, si lors qu'il fut sollicité par Satã de se bailler à luy, Satan parloit distinctement. Il respondit que non, & qu'à peine pouuoit il comprendre ce qu'il disoit.'160 The evidence of the witches in the Basses-Pyrénées makes it clear that a disguise was worn, and that a mask was placed on the back either of the head or of the person; this also explains part of Agnes Sampson's evidence given above. The effect of the mask at the back of the head was to make the man appear two-faced, 'comme le dieu Janus'. In the other case 'le diable estoit en forme de bouc, ayant vne queue, & au-dessoubs vn visage d'homme noir ... & n'a parole par ce visage de derriere.—Vne grande queüe au derriere, & vne forme de visage au dessoubs: duquel visage il ne profere aucune parole, ains luy sert pour donner à baiser à ceux qui bon luy semble.—Marie d'Aspilecute dit qu'elle le baisa à ce visage de derriere au dessoubs d'vne grande queuë; qu'elle l'y a baisé par trois fois, & qu'il auoit ce visage faict comme le museau d'vn bouc.—Bertrand de Handuch, aagee de dix ans, confessa que le cul du grãd maistre auoit vn visage derriere, & c'estoit le visage de derriere qu'on baisoit, & non le cul.'161 The Devil of the Basses-Pyrénées evidently wore a mask over the face, for he had 'la voix effroyable & sans ton, quand il parle on diroit que cest vn mullet qui se met à braire, il a la voix casse, la parole malarticulee, & peu intelligible, parcequ'il a tousiours la voix triste & enroüee'. On occasions also 'il quitoit la forme de Bouc, & prenoit celle d'homme'.162 In 1614 at Orleans Silvain Nevillon said 'qu'il vit à la cheminée vn homme noir duquel on ne voyoit pas la teste. Vit aussi vn grand homme noir à l'opposite de celuy de la cheminée, & que ledit hom̃e noir parloit comme si la voix fut sortie d'vn poinson. Dit: Que le Diable dit le Sermõ au Sabbat, mais qu'on n'entend ce qu'il dit, parce qu'il parle com̃e en grõdant.'163 The devil who appeared to Joan Wallis, the Huntingdonshire witch, in 1649, was in the shape of a man dressed in black, but he 'was not as her husband, which speaks to her like a man, but he as he had been some distance from her when he was with her'.164 Thomazine Ratcliffe, a Suffolk witch, said that the Devil 'spoke with a hollow, shrill voyce'.165 According to Mary Green (1665) the Somerset Devil, who was a little man, 'put his hand to his Hat, saying, How do ye? speaking low but big'.166