The Devil Take Me Trivia Quiz

Answer: Boston, MA

Prior to the 1750s Boston was the largest town in British North America and the busiest seaport. Ironically, though Boston's population at the time the story begins would qualify Boston for city status, it was not incorporated as a city until the early 1820s, two years before the book "Tales of a Traveller", in which the short story "The Devil and Tom Walker" appears, came out. By contrast the city which surpassed Boston as the largest town and seaport in British North America in the 1750s, Philadelphia, was incorporated as a city in 1701.

Irving places the beginning of the story a few miles from Boston and several miles from something he calls Charles Bay. Exactly where this Charles Bay is seems to be a guess unless Irving was referring to Boston Harbor and the mouth of the Charles River.

Answer: William Kidd

Richard Coote, 1st Earl of Bellomont (or Bellamont), was one of Captain William Kidd's financial sponsors in the 1690s. At the time he was also the governor of the colonies of Massachusetts, New York, and New Hampshire. When accusations that Kidd had shifted from privateering to outright piracy reached Bellomont, he feared that he would be implicated in piracy himself. In order to avoid this he brought Kidd to Boston, under false pretenses, where he had him arrested. He had Kidd imprisoned at Stone Prison (Boston Gaol) for about a year before shipping him to England to stand trial for the charges against him. So Kidd had certainly spent time in the Boston area before his death in 1701.

Tales of Kidd's treasure inspired legends of it being buried in various locations including Nova Scotia's Oak Island, Connecticut's Thimble Islands, and even Suffolk County, Long Island, NY. Suffolk County, Long Island is home to Gradiner's Island (or Gardiners Island) where Kidd did bury some treasure that Bellomont would use as evidence in the trial against him. The tales of the treasure inspired not only Irving, but also Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Louis Stevenson, among others.

Answer: Earthquakes

In the fall of 1727 an earthquake struck just off the Massachusetts-New Hampshire coastline that has come to be known as the Great 1727 Earthquake, though ministers of the time referred to it as the "Wrath of God." Cotton Mather, of the Salem Witchcraft Trials fame, wrote that in Boston the quake struck at a quarter of 11 on the night of October 29th and that it was followed by four or five aftershocks, the last of these being felt between 5 and 6 the following morning (today we know that according to the Gregorian calendar the quake happened November 10th but the October 29th date Mather recorded comes from the Julian calendar still in use at the time). About 39 miles north of Boston in Newbury, Massachusetts the quake caused fissures and the residents of the town reported that the quake sounded like a cannon blast.

In Newcastle, NH the quake set the church bell to ringing, while on Massachusetts' Nantucket Island a boat builder put to sea because he believed the island was sinking. A Reverend Nathaniel Gookin of Hampton, NH would quote from Psalm 55:5 in a sermon following the quake when describing the terror it caused.

The quake would be felt along the New England coast from Connecticut to Maine and even up into Canada and as far south as the NY-Pennsylvania border. Despite the fear and damage it caused, no one was seriously harmed by this quake.

Answer: Farthing

Farthing comes from the Anglo-Saxon feorthing, which roughly means fourth part. Historically a farthing was equal to a quarter of an old British penny, which would make it worth half a halfpenny. Given as the story ends some time after 1727, the farthings Tom Walker references most likely had the image of King George II on them.

Answer: Meagre and miserly

Irving describes Tom Walker at the beginning of the story as being a meagre (or meager) and miserly man. From this we can take away that his physical appearance was lean or thin while he tended to hoard money.

Answer: Yes

Oh yes, he had a wife. Unfortunately she was just like him. This meant the two argued a lot and they schemed against each other in everything, rather than willingly share things. If a chicken should cluck at laying an egg she would immediately snatch it up before he could know about it.

He was constantly snooping into her business, often trying to find where she hid things. Irving describes Tom's wife as being just as miserly as he was. He further describes her as being "a tall termagant, fierce of temper, loud of tongue, and strong of arm."

Answer: Diedrich Knickerbocker and Geoffrey Crayon

"The Devil and Tom Walker" joins Irving's more famous short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle" in that Irving published it under a different pen name than he said he wrote it under. The two more famous short stories first appeared in "The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent." where Irving, writing as Geoffrey Crayon, states that they were found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker. So he has his Crayon pen name publishing works by his Knickerbocker pen name. "The Devil and Tom Walker" was first published as a part of Irving's "Tales of a Traveller", which he published under the Crayon pen name. This book was divided into four parts with the fourth part, which contains "The Devil and Tom Walker", being called "The Money-Diggers". All the stories in this part are attributed to his Knickerbocker pen name, as he states in the intro to the part that it was "Found Among the Papers of the Late Diedrich Knickerbocker".

Launcelot Langstaff and Will Wizard were pen names Irving used when writing for the satirical magazine "Salmagundi; or The Whim-whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, Esq. & Others". The magazine was written by Irving along with his older brother William and James K. Paulding.

Answer: The slave trade

In giving pirate money to Tom Walker, the devil insisted that it should be used in his service. He then suggests that Tom should use the money to fit out a slave ship. However, although Tom was a bad man, the slave trade was something he was too squeamish to involve himself in.

The devil did not push the point and instead suggested he become a usurer, someone who lends money for unreasonably high interest rates. This proved to be to Tom's liking, as Tom was more than happy to charge such high interest rates as to bankrupt merchants and foreclose on mortgages.

The devil suggested Tom charge two cents a month in interest on his loans (a considerable sum for the time period) and Tom immediately countered he'd charge twice that. His terms were in proportion to the suffering of those coming to him for a loan.

He would squeeze every last penny, or perhaps farthing would be more accurate, out of his customers.

Answer: False

We can surmise that the opposite is true. Irving states that their fights were not always a mere heated exchange of words. Indeed, sometimes his face showed signs of physical violence. While Irving never says the exact nature of that violence, we can expect slapping his face likely took place. Also hitting him with some object in the face and scratching his face seem likely.

Their marriage, after all, was not a happy one.

Answer: Old Scratch

Angra Mainyu is the name of the destructive spirit in Zoroastrainism and the enemy of Hurmuz, the creator god in Zoroastrainism. The Prince of Darkness is the combined title for the five evil Archons of Manichaeism. It is also a title for the devil as Manichaeism missionaries, in explaining the concept to Christians, referred to them as Satanas. Milton used this title for Satan in "Paradise Lost". Voland is the name of a squire in Goethe's "Faust".

Along with Old Nick, Old Scratch is a nickname given to the devil. It appears in a number of works of literature including "The Devil and Tom Walker", "The Devil and Daniel Webster", "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and "A Christmas Carol".

Answer: At an old Indian fort

Tom Walker had been in a distant part of his neighborhood and was taking a shortcut on the way home. He arrived at the remains of an old Indian fort located on a peninsula in an evergreen swamp. Irving tells us that the old fort dated back to the wars with the colonists in New England. Most likely this was King Philip's War, also known as Metacomet's War. It is here that he meets the devil for the first time.

Irving does give a sense that a long time has passed since the fort was originally constructed. He reveals that nothing of the fort remains save a handful of embankments, and these are slowly sinking back into the earth around them. The whole site is already overgrown with by oaks and other trees. We can guess that, besides the oaks Irving specifically mentions, the other trees growing in and around the old fort are deciduous, because he tells us their foliage is a contrast to the pines and hemlocks of the swamp, possibly birches and maples among others.

Answer: Carried off by the devil's horse

A poor land speculator had come to Tom Walker to beg for a little more time to pay him what he owes. Tom refused to grant the man any more time. When the man pointed out that Tom had bled him dry, Tom angrily exclaimed, "The devil take me if I have made a farthing!" At that moment the devil appeared on Tom's doorstep holding a black horse.

The devil immediately grabbed Tom and placed him on the horse's saddle. He then gave the horse a lash and it took off down the street, carrying Tom away to the swamp where he'd first encountered the devil.

A man who lived near the swamp reported seeing Tom and horse plunging into the swamp heading towards the old Indian fort. It was the last anyone saw of Tom Walker, as shortly after the man witnessed the two plunge into the swamp a thunderbolt struck and seemed to set the whole forest on fire.

Answer: False

Oh, if only we could say this were true, it would be something aside from his refusal to enter into the slave trade that would be nice about him. But we have two instances that show he was not always nice to animals. In the first, when the story starts and he is still a poor man, Tom Walker and his wife are shown to have a horse, one which it appears that both of them neglect, for Irving describes it as being so thin that its ribs are "as articulate as the bars of a gridiron." This is a reference to the grate for cooking meat over a fire. And as it had virtually nothing to eat where they lived, it would often "look piteously at the passer-by, and seem to petition deliverance from this land of famine."

What became of this horse we don't really know. We can assume it may have died, or maybe Tom used it after becoming a wealthy man to pull his carriage. If this is so it didn't fare any better than before and it was joined by at least one other horse. We know that Tom had two horses to pull his carriage, first because Irving does specify horses plural in relation to this carriage, and second because after Tom dies Irving tells us he had two horses. In specifying the plural horses, Irving tells us that Tom nearly starved the animals that pulled his carriage. He later mentions that these horses were half starved in Tom's lifetime.

From having a starving horse when he was poor to starving horses when he's rich, it is clear Tom Walker was not always, if ever, kind to animals.

Irving does reveal that, after Tom's death, the people of Boston appointed trustees to administer Tom's estate. These trustees discovered the skeletons of two horses in his stable instead of the half starved horses they expected. At first this may seem to be a third example of Tom's cruelty to animals, and indeed this cannot be ruled out. However, we also can't take it as such either, for it seems the devil had been busy before the trustees showed up. Everything Tom was known to have in his possession when he died was not there. Bonds and mortgages were burned to ash. Gold and silver were replaced with chips and shavings, the two horses replaced with skeletons. And the following day, after the trustees search it, the entire house burned to the ground. So it is possible the death of the two horses was the devil's doing, although we can't rule out the possibility that Tom had starved them to death before he himself died.

Answer: A tomahawk

While digging in the dirt with his walking stick, Tom Walker strikes something hard. He digs it out to discover it is a cloven skull with a rusty Indian tomahawk buried in it. The amount of rust on the weapon shows it had been there a long time. Was it an Indian skull or a white man's skull? We actually don't know, though we assume it may have been the latter. Irving had said that the Indians believed this fort to be almost impregnable, but then by presenting this skull he suggests that fighting did take place inside the fort, and this cloven skull was a memento of that fierce struggle.

Answer: Black

The devil is described as a great black man, his coloring coming not from race but from the fact that he was covered in soot. In fact Irving specifically states that he was "neither negro nor Indian" and that his face was "neither black nor copper-color".

He was "swarthy and dingy, and begrimed with soot, as if he had been accustomed to toil among fires and forges." His hair was a coarse black; today we might say it looked like he'd stuck a finger in a light socket, as it stood out in all directions.

His eyes were red. Over one shoulder he carried an axe. For clothing he wore a rude, half Indian garb and a red belt or sash wrapped around his body.

Answer: Quakers and Anabaptists

In introducing himself, the devil tells Tom Walker that since Indians have been exterminated by white savages he amuses himself by presiding over the persecution of Quakers and Anabaptists. He also claims that in some countries he is known as the wild huntsman, while in others he is the black miner.

In that particular neighborhood he is known as the black woodsman. The area where the fort is located he claims the Indians consecrated to him, and they roasted white men there, from time to time, in his honor. To finish his introduction he claims to be both the patron and prompter of the slave trade as well as the grandmaster of the witches of Salem.

Answer: Tried to convince him not to accept the deal

The devil made Tom Walker an offer of great wealth in exchange for the usual terms. He then allowed him some time to decide whether or not he wanted to accept the offer. When his wife learned he had met the devil and had been made an offer of his soul in exchange for wealth, she insisted that he take the deal. Given as neither liked to share anything with the other and both were likely to cut off their own nose just to spite the other, Tom refused to make the deal. This would lead to many arguments over the subject between the two.

Eventually his wife set out to make her own deal with the devil. She wouldn't return until after nightfall, as we find out that many hours went by before she finally found the devil, and that was at twilight. When she returned home all she really revealed was that the devil had not come to terms with her and that she was to return with some kind of offering. She refused to reveal what the offering was. However, we learn that it must have been to bring the devil everything they owned of value that she could possibly carry, because she set out the next evening with their silver teapot and spoon set, along with anything else valuable she could carry.

Answer: We don't actually know

Irving tells us that her real fate is unknown. Initially he tells us of the speculations of historians that she had become lost in the swamp and sank into some pit. Or that she had taken off with their valuables to some distant province. Or even that she'd been decoyed into a quagmire where she was either drowned or killed. The proponents of this theory point to her hat being found on top of a quagmire and that a great black man with an axe over one shoulder was seen that night carrying her apron with something wrapped in it.

However, Irving has Tom Walker surmise that the devil probably killed his wife based on evidence he discovers when, after several days, he set out to find her and the property she took. He discovered her apron tied in a bundle hanging from a cypress tree. Believing the valuables were in the bundle, he climbed the tree to retrieve the apron. He discovered instead that it contained only a heart and liver. Tom had other clues that the he believed pointed to the devil having killed her, including cloven prints stamped deeply into the tree and handfuls of coarse black hair that looked as if someone had yanked them from the devil's head. Of course, this is Tom Walker's conclusion, though it is acknowledged that she was never seen again and that his conclusion became the most likely story of what happened to her.

Answer: He became a violent church-goer.

As Tom Walker grew old he began to think about what was to come when he died. Having sold his soul, he regretted having made the deal. Seeking to cheat the devil out of his soul he became a "violent church-goer." He prayed loudly in church, the volume of his prayers telling when he had sinned the most during the week. Irving states that he was as rigid in religious matters as he was in those of money, and that he became a religious supervisor and censurer of his neighbors. He would see every sin they made as a credit towards his own.

It may be that Tom also believed that he could have traded other souls for his own, as he spoke of reviving the persecution of Quakers and Anabaptists. Perhaps Tom had remembered that the devil took amusement in presiding over their persecution. If so, perhaps he believed that he would be too busy amusing himself in revived persecutions of Quakers and Anabaptists to come for Tom's soul when he died.

And yes, there is a town in Massachusetts called New Salem. It's located in the western Massachusetts county of Franklin County and was founded in 1737 by settlers from Salem, Massachusetts. They named the town for the one they had come from.

Answer: Two Bibles

Despite becoming a church-goer, Tom Walker still feared the devil would come for what was his due. So to prevent the devil from taking his soul unawares, he had two Bibles as his weapons. One was a small pocket Bible that he kept in his coat pocket at all times. The other was a large Bible he kept on his desk in his counting house. He was often to be found by his customers reading the latter when they came to see him.

Of course, both of these were only good if he had them with him. When the devil came for him Tom was dressed in a white linen cap and silk morning-gown. He wasn't wearing the coat his pocket Bible was in, and he'd left the larger Bible on his desk buried under the mortgage of the land speculator he'd been meeting with. He had stepped away from his desk to answer the door and didn't have either Bible with him. Without either of these on his person he didn't stand a chance of preventing the devil from taking him.