Gambrinus kept clear of women, says the legend,
and so lived in peace. For thirty years he sat beneath his
belfry with the chimes, meditatively drinking beer with his
nobles and burghers around him. Then Beelzebub sent Jocko, one
of his imps, with orders to bring back Gambrinus before
midnight. But Jocko was, like Swiveller's Marchioness,
ignorant of the taste of beer, never having drunk of it even
in a sip, and the Flemish schoppen were too much for him. He
fell into a drunken sleep, and did not wake up until noon next
day, at which he was so mortified that he had not the face to
go back to hell at all. So Gambrinus lived on tranquilly for a
century or two, and drank so much beer that he turned into a
beer-barrel.[121]
[121] See Deulin, Contes d'un Buveur de Biere, pp. 3-29.
The character of gullibility attributed to the Devil in these
legends is probably derived from the Trolls, or "night-folk,"
of Northern mythology. In most respects the Trolls resemble
the Teutonic elves and fairies, and the Jinn or Efreets of the
Arabian Nights; but their pedigree is less honourable. The
fairies, or "White Ladies," were not originally spirits of
darkness, but were nearly akin to the swan-maidens,
dawn-nymphs, and dryads, and though their wrath was to be
dreaded, they were not malignant by nature.
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