Bearing these facts in mind, we are not astonished to learn that early beliefs allocated the North to the Spirit of Evil. The idea is rife throughout the heathen legends of Northern nations[856]. The underworld, in Teutonic mythology, is placed under the third root of the ash tree, Yggdrasill, “low down toward the North,” where there is cold, eternal night. In this mist-hell, the unhappy sojourner wanders down valleys deep and dark; he enters joyless caverns; oftentimes, too, he hears the roaring of the waterfall which belongs to the demons[857]. Nor are such ideas confined to heathen folk. Again and again, in the Old Testament, especially in Job and Isaiah, “the sides of the North” are represented as the abode of the Prince of Darkness[858]. Even the New Testament has faint allusions to the same belief. Naturally, then, English literature became permeated with this idea. Shakespeare, all-embracing in his references to prevailing superstitions, makes La Pucelle invoke demons--“substitutes under the lordly monarch of the North[859].” In _Paradise Lost_ we are told how the banded powers of Satan appear in “the spacious North,” where the arch-rebel has erected his throne[860]. Milton recurs to the idea several times; thus, in one of the sonnets, we meet with the epithet, “the false North[861].” Later poets, perhaps unconsciously imitating Milton, have expressed the same fancy. Kirke White, in the _Christiad_, the poem on which, as Southey tells us, the hapless young poet bestowed most pains, placed his hosts of demons among the impenetrable fogs and lamenting gales--
“Where the North Pole, in moody solitude, Spreads her huge tracks and frozen wastes around[862].”
These illustrations show that the Northern quarter of the heavens was the source of much superstition. The simple childish myth was often amplified. Origen taught that the place of everlasting damnation was at the earth’s centre, and that the entrance was situated at the North Pole. Each time the Aurora Borealis flashed, the gates of hell opened anew, and the wicked on earth were warned of their doom[863]. The doctrine of fear of the North creeps in everywhere. The parish church, according to some writers, is most suitably built on the North side of the graveyard, so that it may not cast a shadow on the graves[864]. This “rule” is undoubtedly beset by many transgressions, but it embodies a tendency, and I have noticed some remarkable confirmations. Many churchyards have but a very narrow strip of ground lying to the North of the edifice. In spite of these instances, I consider that the generalization is too definite, and that the alleged reason lacks adequate support. The superstition concerning the Northern, or Devil’s door, on the contrary, is general and well-authenticated.