Many legends circulated in the Middle Ages about members of Satan’s family, who appeared infrequently in didactic literature written for preachers. Misogynist in character, descriptions of the loathsome nature of his mother, his wife, and his daughters were almost always allegorical. While his mother and wife were often depicted as nags and scolds, his daughters were personified mockeries of the seven cardinal virtues, who sowed discord at every station of human society.
Satan and his mother were walking on the seashore. At that very hour it happened that many ships and sailors were put in jeopardy upon the sea and sank. Seeing this, the devil said: “Do you see, my mother?” And he added: “If I was there among them, men, who do not cease to defame me, would say that I was the one who had caused those boats to sink. Indeed, they call me the author of all maladies. It is lucky for me just now that you can serve as my witness that I was not there.” His mother responded: “I know, my son, that you were not present there, but your tail most certainly was.”
So it is with evil counselors when they are absent. They are thought to be innocent of what they have whispered to the detriment of others, when the deed that took effect through other channels proceeded from their counsel. But it is nonetheless clear to any wise person that their tail was present in that mischief.
Deceivers and flatterers have tails, because they always sow their venom in silence and in absence. Truthful people show their face because they speak the truth openly.
It is said that the devil bore nine daughters with a wife very foul and lustful, who was as black as an extinguished coal owing to the burning of her depraved desires. She was rank due to infamy and sported swollen eyes due to pride, a long and misshapen nose due to the machinations and schemes of her sins, and large and floppy ears due to her curiosity. She listened eagerly not only to rumors of vanity, but also to words of iniquity and distraction. Her hands were contaminated by greediness and the grip of avarice. Her lips were gaping and her mouth fetid due to unclean and hostile speech. Her feet were twisted, like her unpredictable affect. Her breasts were pendulous, swollen, itching, and scab-ridden, one of which dispensed the poison of carnal desire to her whelps, while the other dispensed the wind of worldly vanity. Out of these daughters, the devil married eight of them to as many kinds of men: Simony to prelates and clerics; Hypocrisy to monks and those religious in name only; Rape to soldiers; Usury to townsmen; Fraud to merchants; Robbery to farmers, who steal the tithe sacred to God from the ministers of the churches; False Service to workers; and lastly Pride and Excess to women. The ninth daughter, Lust, wanted to marry no one, but instead, like a wicked prostitute, she offered herself to every kind of man, mingling with everyone, sparing no kind of man. Indeed, in the stench of her perfumes, men raced without caution to her brothel, like birds to a trap, mice to cheese, fish to a hook; it was difficult to escape her grasp once she had someone in her grip.