Deal With Devil
A deal with the Devil, pact with the Devil, or Faustian bargain is a cultural motif widespread wherever the Devil is vividly present, most familiar in the legend of Faust and the figure of Mephistopheles, but elemental to many Christian folktales. In the Aarne-Thompson typological catalogue, it lies in category AT 756B – "The devil's contract."
According to traditional Christian belief in witchcraft, the pact is between a person and Satan or any other demon (or demons); the person offers his or her soul in exchange for diabolical favours. Those favours vary by the tale, but tend to include youth, knowledge, wealth, or power. It was also believed that some persons made this type of pact just as a sign of recognizing the Devil as their master, in exchange for nothing. Regardless, the bargain is a dangerous one, for the price of the Fiend's service is the wagerer's soul. The tale may have a moralizing end, with eternal damnation for the foolhardy venturer. Conversely it may have a comic twist, in which a wily peasant outwits the Devil, characteristically on a technical point. Among the credulous, any apparently superhuman achievement might be credited to a pact with the Devil, from the numerous European Devil's Bridges to the superb violin technique of Niccolò Paganini.
The predecessor of Faustus in Christian mythology is Theophilus ("Friend of God" or "Beloved of god") the unhappy and despairing cleric, disappointed in his worldly career by his bishop, who sells his soul to the Devil but is redeemed by the Virgin Mary. His story appears in a Greek version of the sixth century written by a "Eutychianus" who claims to have been a member of the household in question. A ninth-century Miraculum Sancte Marie de Theophilo penitente inserts a Jew as intermediary with diabolus, his "patron", providing the prototype of a closely-linked series in the Latin literature of the West.[2] In the tenth century, the poet nun Hroswitha of Gandersheim adapted the text of Paulus Diaconis for a narrative poem that elaborates Theophilus' essential goodness and internalizes the forces of Good and Evil, in which the Jew is magus, a necromancer. As in her model, Theophilus receives back his contract from the Virgin, displays it to the congregation, and soon dies. A long poem on the subject by Gautier de Coincy (1177/8 – 1236), entitled Comment Theophilus vint a pénitence provided material for a thirteenth-century play by Rutebeuf, Le Miracle de Théophile, where Theophilus is the central pivot in a frieze of five characters, the Virgin and the Bishop flanking him on the side of Good, the Jew and the Devil on the side of Evil.
he idea of "selling your soul for instrumental prowess/fame" has occurred several times within music usually in guitar dominated genres and more specifically in heavy metal. Blues mans cross roads, located in Tchula Junction, Mississippi, is said to be the universal meeting grounds for such exchange. It was said that in your twenty-seventh year the devil would come to collect his property.
* Niccolò Paganini, Italian violinist, who may not have started the rumour but played along with it.
* Tommy Johnson, blues musician
* Robert Johnson, blues musician, who claimed to have met with Satan at the crossroads and signed over his soul to play the blues.
* Tommy Davis, blues musician, who likely cribbed the same story from Robert Johnson
Non-Musicians
* Urbain Grandier A notorious case of a diabolical pact was the one that cost Urbain Grandier his life. One of the pacts was redacted in Latin; the other is written in abbreviated, backwards Latin (which is readable when reversed), and signed by several "demons", one of them Satan, whose name was clearly written "Satanas" (see the article on Urbain Grandier for the original pact).
* Gilles de Rais (executed)
* Johann Georg Faust Likely source for the Faust legend.
* Jonathan Moulton 18th century Brigadier General of the New Hampshire Militia, alleged to have sold his soul to the devil to have his boots, hung by the fireplace, filled with gold coins every month.
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