612 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



harm." They went to it and God broke the stone with his whip. Then the 

 devil sprang out of it and grabbed God's horse. The devil said to God, " I and 

 you were both in the same stone. I and you are of the same origin. I am the 

 heart of the stone like you, so give me part of the world." While God chose 

 for himself men and animals, the devil chose the souls. But the angels said 

 to him : " Rejoice not overmuch. Know that the souls will remain in your 

 hand only until a Son of God is born, who will free the dead from thy kingdom." 

 The devil answered: " That will be a long time hence." 



God placed himself and his archangels upon the cloud, raised himself high 

 over the earth and created the heavens. Satanael made, with his devils, a 

 second heaven that was higher than God's. God would not live below Satanael 

 and raised himself higher and made a third heaven. In this way, vying with 

 each other, they created nine heavens, one above the other, and Satanael began 

 to build a tenth heaven still higher. Then God lost his patience and commanded 

 his angels that they throw Satanael and his devils down from heaven. 



Satanael and his angels fell down upon the earth. Each took his name from 

 the place where he fell. He who fell in the wood became a wood devil, he that 

 fell upon the water became a water devil. 



In the Balkans they describe this fall of the angels thus : 

 As the angels under the earth mourn and complain we feel it as an earth- 

 quake, when they weep on the earth their tears are so hot that long drought 

 follows, when floating among the stars they shed tears and we see them fall upon 

 the earth as shooting stars. 



We may continue the story as it is told by the Bulgarians : 



As now Satan saw the great broad earth, he hit upon the deceitful plan of 

 putting God to sleep and then throwing him in the water; taking possession of 

 the earth himself and claiming honor as creator of the earth. God of course 

 knew Satan's plan, but laid him down as if to sleep. Satan then seized God 

 and carried him to the great water to throw him in. As he came to the shore 

 the land began to grow rapidly so that he could in no wise reach the water. 

 He turned back to the opposite shore, but for the same reason could not reach 

 that. And as he could not reach the water from the third side because of the 

 growth of the land before him, he let God slide down on the ground, and sank 

 down beside him. After he had slept awhile he took God up again and carried 

 him in the fourth direction to the water. As the land began immediately to 

 grow in this direction also, so in this direction also he failed to reach the water. 



He then waked God up, saying, "Arise, God, let us bless the earth! Lo, 

 how it is grown while we slept." God answered him, " As you have carried me 

 in four directions, to throw me in the water, and thus with my body described 

 a cross, I have blessed the earth already, that it grow and flourish." This made 

 Satan wroth and he left God. God remained alone, and the earth grew continu- 

 ously, so that it could no longer be covered by the sun's light. Then God 

 created out of his spirit angels and sent the war angel to ask Satanael what 

 he should do to stop the earth's growing. 



In the meantime the devil had made him a goat, and he came to God riding 

 on the back of the goat, for which he had made a beard of earth. Since that 

 time goats have beards to the present day. As the angels saw the devil riding 

 toward them they laughed at him; he was wroth and rode back. On the instant 

 God created a bee and said: "Fly quickly to Satan and listen to his speech. 

 Return and inform me." The bee then flew to Satan and perched on his shoulder 

 as he spoke to himself, "Oh, this foolish God (0 dieser dummer Gott), he 

 knows not that he needs only to take a stick and mark the earth with a cross 



