“The historical truth of the story is that Gerbert was unusually gifted and well educated. He was familiar with the wisdom of the Saracens, for Borell, Duke of Hither Spain, carried him as a youth to his country where he studied mathematics and astronomy. He came early in contact with the most influential men of his time, and became Pope in 999. He was liberal enough to denounce some of his unworthy predecessors as ‘monsters of more than human iniquity,’ and as ‘Antichrist, sitting in the temple of God and playing the part of the Devil’ (the text inadvertently reads: and playing the part of God); but at the same time he pursued an independent and vigorous papal policy, foreshadowing in his aims both the pretensions of Gregory the Great and the Crusades.” MADAM LUCIFER BY RICHARD GARNETT Perhaps the most fascinating--and the most dangerous--character in the infernal world is this _Mater tenebrarum_--Our Lady of Darkness. “A lady devil,” says Daniel Defoe, “is about as dangerous a creature as one could meet.” When Lucifer fails to bring a man to his fall, he hands the case over to his better half, and it is said that no man has ever escaped the siren seductions of this Diabo-Lady. A poem, _The Diabo-Lady, or a Match in Hell_, appeared in London in 1777. According to Teutonic mythology, this diabolical Madonna is the mother or the grandmother of Satan. The mother or grandmother of Grendel, the Anglo-Saxon evil demon, became Satan’s mother or grandmother by adoption. A mother was a necessary part of the devil’s equipment. Having set his mind to equal Christ in every detail of his life, Satan had to get a mother somehow. In his story “The Vision Malefic” (1920) Mr. Huneker tells of the appearance of this counterfeit Madonna on a Christmas Eve to the organist of a Roman Catholic church in New York. Partly out of devotion to her and partly also because he could not obtain the sacramental blessing of the Church, Satan was forced to remain single. In the story “Devil-Puzzlers” by Fred B. Perkins the demon Apollyon appears as an old bachelor. “I have a mother, but no wife,” he tells the charming Mrs. Hicok. The synagogue was more lenient towards the devil. The rabbis did not hesitate to perform the marriage ceremony for the diabolical pair. According to Jewish tradition the chief of the fallen angels married Lilith, Adam’s first wife. She is said to have been in her younger days a woman of great beauty, but with a heart of ice. Now, of course, she is a regular hell-hag. If we can trust Rossetti, who painted her Majesty’s portrait, she still is a type of beauty whose fascination is fatal. This woman was created by the Lord to be the help-meet of Adam, but mere man had no attraction for this superwoman. She is said to have started the fight for woman’s emancipation from man, and contested Adam’s right to be the head of the family. Their married life was very brief.