In this connection Luther can tell some very coarse and vulgar jokes, both at his own and others’ expense, in illustration of the contempt which the devil deserves; they cannot here be passed over in silence. Thus, on April 15, 1538, he relates the story of a woman of Magdeburg whom Satan vexed by running over her bed at night “like rats and mice. As he would not cease the woman put her a—— over the bedside, presented him with a f—— (if such language be permissible) and said: ‘There, devil, there’s a staff, take it in your hand and go pilgriming with it to Rome to the Pope your idol.’” Ever after the devil left her in peace, for “he is a proud spirit and cannot endure to be treated contemptuously.”[1224] According to Lauterbach, who gives the story in somewhat briefer form, Luther sapiently remarked: “Such examples do not always hold good, and are dangerous.”[1225] He himself was nevertheless fond of expressing his contempt for the devil after a similar way when the latter assailed him with remorse of conscience. “I can drive away the devil with a single f——.”[1226] “To shame him we may tell him: Kiss my a——”,[1227] or “Ease yourself into your shirt and tie it round your neck,” etc.[1228] On May 7, 1532, when troubled in mind and afraid lest “the thunder should strike him, he said: ‘Lick my a——, I want to sleep, not to hold a disputation.’”[1229] On another occasion he exclaims: “The devil shall lick my a—— even though I should have sinned.”[1230] When the devil teased him at night, “suggesting all sorts of strange thoughts to him,” he at last said to him: “Kiss me on the seat! God is not angry as you would have it.” Of course, seeing that the devil “‘fouls’ the knowledge of God,” he must expect to be “fouled” in his turn. Luther frequently said, so the Table-Talk relates, that he would end by sending “into his a—— where they belonged” those “twin devils” who were in the habit of prying on him and tormenting him mentally and bodily; for “they had brought him to such a pass that he was fit for nothing.”[1231] The Pope had once played him (Luther) the same trick: “He has stuck me into the devil’s behind”;[1232] “for I snap at the Pope’s ban and am his devil, therefore does he hate and persecute me.”[1233]