The Devil's Frying pan

[watervole]

While pondering over the questions of the Cerne Abbas Giant, Beelezbub and frying pans, a phrase came into my mind: "the devil's frying pan"

I googled it, and sure enough, the phrase has an old history. There's a cave in Cornwall by this name; in 1864, Harper's Weekly had a story called 'The Devil's Frying pan (where it's clearly intended to be a place name in America)'; and last but not least, we have the Devil's Frying Pan on Dartmoor.

The legend with the Dartmoor frying pan is: 

 

Devil's Frying Pan

This is a naturally formed rock basin which is found on Great Mis tor. It measures about 3 feet in diameter and 8 inches in depth, the bottom is flat with a small drainage channel which leads to the edge of the rock. However, this 'Frying Pan' was said to have been used by The Devil for frying the souls of those sinners who had been sent down to hell.

And there we have the answer as to why the devil (or Beelzebub) carries a frying pan.  Nowadays, we have a far less literal belief in the fires of hell, and the old medieval style pictures of the devil personally torturing each and every sinner just seem funny to us.  Back in a time when people had a far more literal interpretation of hell, an image like the one below would be far more familiar.



This one lacks a frying pan, but there's a nice cauldron.


Found this picture from an Irish mumming group while looking for medieval devils. Couldn't resist.

Beelzebub

And the final example of the model maker's craftsmanship is Beelzebub who is a dirty lookin clart.

"Here comes I Beelzebub,
And in my hand I carry a club,
And over my shoulder, a frying pan,
A'm'nt I a horrible old man,
And if you don't believe in what I say
Enter in the bold slasher
And he'll soon clear the way"

So, there we have what I've got so far.  The frying pan is for torturing the damned souls (and must have been used for commedy value to claim to fry other things on occasion).  'the Devils Frying pan' was a phrase with familiarity in some areas at least. The club (rather than pitchfork) is speculatively there because it rhymes with Beelzebub.

As you can see from the similarity of phrasing between the different mumming plays, they likely started from one original source and changed as they moved onwards.  The characters change and develop as they move (beelzebub isn't that common a character, I just happen to be focusing on him) and the script changes too, but the common elements of a fight between two warriors, a death and a cure by a quack doctor (and often an appeal for money) all remain as core elements of the play.

Where does that leave me with regard to the Cerne Abbas Giant?

It now seems likely to me that people at one time regarded the figure as representing the devil.  Probably at a time long enough after it was carved for it's origins to have been forgotten, and a time when all pagan-looking figures were associated with the devil.  If he was the devil, then the earthwork (also ancient and generally a bad thing, espcially with all those dodgy May Day revels) was obviously his frying pan.