Where Did The Little Devil Character Originate In Folklore?

Follow the little devil on a short journey through a long history. His compact, mischievous figure can be found in the margins of medieval Christian art and in sermons long after they had been delivered, but he draws his temperament and his antics from the pre-Christianculture of a vast array of trickster figures: household spirits, fauns and sprites.

Thus the figure is both an original creation and an heir to earlier mythic characters. The artist/storieseller of later times has collected all the misbehaviors of the earlier mythic characters and incorporated them into the form of a very small, evil-acting, demonized figure. He or she is generally rather cute and not at all scary.

When I was a teenager, filling page after page of doodles, I became fascinated with the comic devils. Why did they always look so cute and evil at the same time? The smiling, compact devils of folklore and church art are a mixture of old superstitions and medieval images of demons. Imps and household spirits, such as the kobold and the brownie, were often portrayed as helpful or mischievous and were depicted in strange, contorted forms in medieval manuscripts and on the carvings of cathedrals.

Like Mesopotamia’s demons and Europe’s sprites of the household, these imps and other small creatures have been depicted in a variety of ways by cultures past and present. Their likeness was often used in festivals and in theatrical masks to portray mischievous characters. Today, you can find the image of these little creatures on postcards, in comics and cartoons. Most of them depict the little devils as scary creatures but at the same time funny and even friendly. That’s how I see them too and therefore I still draw them with a slight smile in their faces because they symbolize danger and mischief at the same time in a quite comforting way.

I found a really interesting post today about the tiny devil trope which can appear in folklore and culture all around the world. These trickster figures often appear in African and Caribbean folklore as small sprightly characters, and in Slavic folklore there are household spirits called domovoi and leshys which can be benevolent or malevolent. In Japanese folklore there are small oni and also a range of other yōkai that are mischievous or trickster-like.

The little devil represents the inner mischief-maker or shadow in a compact externalized form which is easily dramatized in a story or festival. A child’s fear or even curiosity of breaking rules can be channeled into this form and be made the subject of humor instead of something to be feared. It makes the idea of the little devil less scary and more human, which is strangely comforting to me.

It seems that every time I am called upon to draw a little devil for cartoons and folk art, I am transported back to the medieval workshops of image and story. It was in European Christian art that the ‘little devil’ took on his most distinctive and mischievous form as the imp-like figure of sin and temptation. The impish demons that appear in the margins of illuminated manuscripts – often horned and tail-wagging – are so often depicted as small and grotesque in order to represent the individual sins which are whispered in the ear of the unfortunate sinner by the little fiend.

But the roots of these devil characters extend far back into the traditions of many cultures. In the pre-Christian, pagan cultures there were already a host of characters that were mischievous, accursed and, at times, devilish: the Germanic kobolds, the fairies of the Celtic world, the Roman fauns and the satyrs of Greek mythology, for example. Their behaviors and appearances were seized upon by the Christians and transformed into an evil, hostile figure. The Devils of Christian legend, from Dante’s Divine Comedy to Milton’s Paradise Lost, were furthermore ‘ انسانized’ and dramatized in all sorts of ways in literature. The little devils of folklore, so many of them simply mischievous imp-like characters, remained good for pranks and all manner of other tomfoolery. So the little devil is a hybrid creature, a combination of the oldest of trickster figures and the medieval Christian devil.

I’ve noticed games and comics have a rather large affection for tiny devils. The “small evil creatures” archetype (as I call it) are very versatile and can be depicted as rather cute, very annoying or even threatening. It’s a very old concept though and most modern depictions of such creatures stem from European folklore imps (like the imps of medieval legend) and also from domestic sprites (like the kobolds and brownies of European folklore) and were then rendered in medieval imagery and literature (such as the devils in Faust and the various demons in Paradise Lost). In Japanese culture, the yōkai have been portrayed as sprites as well and have been hybridized with the aforementioned devils to create a wide variety of creatures that are largely familiar but slightly new.

Mechanical versatility is the little devil’s greatest strength – small enough to function as a simple minion, but with ample room for personality and expression. This is a creature that draws upon centuries of mischievous portrayal in folklore, twisted church art and later endearing cartoons. A designer can try to have their little devil imp impishly provoke the player or joyfully wreak havoc, and with a moment’s glance at its design you’ll instantly see the influence that came before it, and almost feel the creator’s nod of recognition.