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date: 07 February 2025

‘Mowing Devil, The’. 

Source:
A Dictionary of English Folklore
Author(s):
Jacqueline SimpsonJacqueline Simpson, Steve RoudSteve Roud

The chapbook of this title, printed in 1678, sets out to prove the reality of the Devil by a cautionary tale of an amazing occurrence in Hertfordshire that August. A rich farmer, too mean to pay the wages which a labourer wanted for mowing his oats, angrily said ‘that the Devil himself should Mow his Oats before he [the labourer] should have anything to do with them’. But God punished his greed and heartlessness. That night, the oatfield seemed to be on fire, yet next morning, when the farmer went to look at his oats:... ...

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