Tricking The Devil...!

We've all hard the many stories of folks making a bargain with the Devil , in trade for some favor or fortune. Most turn out badly.

Only a few individuals have managed to come out on the winning side of one of these bargains, if you believe the folk tales. Here is the story about one man who seemed to always be on top of his bargain.

Jack O’Kent

Photo credit: spookyisles.com

Fiction is always quick to point out that a deal with the Devil is usually a terrible idea. Not all folktales bear this out, however. Jack O’Kent is one man who always seemed to come out on top in his dealings with Beelzebub.

Apparently, traveling magician Jack O’Kent made several diabolical deals. In one adventure, he offered the Devil a share of a herd of pigs. To decide who got which pigs, they split the animals according to their tails. Jack got the pigs with curly tails, and the Devil took those with straight tails.

Happy with the division, the Devil waited for his delivery, only to find that Jack had marched the pigs through a stream whose cold water twisted all the pigs’ tails. In another story, the Devil wanted half of Jack’s crop of wheat. Jack paid his debt with the bottom half, leaving the grain for himself. Enraged, the Devil demanded the top half of next year’s crop. Jack promptly planted turnips.

After years of being beaten, the Devil had had enough. He swore to take Jack to hell “whether he was buried inside or outside the church.” Jack had the last laugh by being bricked up in the wall of the church so as to be neither inside nor outside of it.

Even though Jack came out on the good side of his bargains, I'm not sure I would want to take a chance at making a bargain with the Devil. My track record at winning those kinds of bargains isn't the best.

Coffee in the kitchen this morning. Cold front moving in, or so they say!