Best of 2024 | Never Bet the Devil Your Head — Edgar Allan Poe

0:01 Hello, my spookies. I hope you're all having a wonderful Friday. I wanted to bring you one more piece of the best of two thy twenty four, a year full of scares and surprises here at Weekly Spooky, and as I was picking through some of the most memorable moments on the show, I realized this one was a bit different. Because as I have been slowly compiling the total works of Edgar Allan Poe and narrating them for all of you to hear, I'm occasionally surprised by the stories. I find stories that I had never heard of, like the story hop Frog, which I did in November of last year.

0:45 But this story is called never Bet the Devil your Head. I had never heard of this story in any way, shape or form. I'd never read it as a kid, I had never read about it on Wikipedia. Nothing. This story, as far as I was concerned, was completely and utterly new, and boy was it a lot of fun in that creepy way that only Edgar Allan Poe can present. If you missed it last year, now is your opportunity to give this one a listen. As we wrap up the best of twenty twenty four and if you've heard it before, well get comfortable and give it one more listen, because it's important to know the proper etiquette when it comes to dealing with the devil. Make sure you're subscribed on your favorite podcasting app like Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and while you're there, leave us a five star rating. It really helps new spookies find the show. And if you love what we're doing here, what we've been doing for almost six years right here at Weekly Spooky, please consider becoming a patron, backing us every month for a small fee of as little as one dollar a month. By going to Weekly Spooky dot Com slash join, you get two bonus shows every single month, as well as five years of prior bonus content including audiobooks, creepypastas, and so much more. That's at Weeklyspooky dot Com slash Join. But

2:16 now please get comfortable, get something warm to drink, because after this quick break, we are going to chill you with the words of Edgar Allan Poe. Remember you're safe until the clock strikes midnight. That's when the story begins.

3:07 Never bet the Devil your Head. A Tale with a Moral by Edgar Allan Poe contal. Ke las constumbres de un attour, says Don Thomas de las Thoris in the preface to his amatory poems siempreras i castas iporto mupoco ke nocion iglumente severas sos obras, meaning in plain English that provided the morals of an author are pure personally, it signifies nothing. What are the morals of his books? We presume that Don Thomas is now in purgatory for the assertion. It would be a clever thing too, in the way of poetical justice, to keep him there until his amatory poems get out of print or are laid definitely upon the shelf through lack of readers. Every fiction should have a moral, and what is more, to the purpose, the critics have discovered that every fiction has. Philip Melenchthon some time ago wrote a commentary upon the Batrocomiakia and proved that the poet's object was to excite a distaste for sedition. Pierre Lacine, going a step farther, shows that the intention was to recommend to young men temperance in eating and drinking. Just so too, Jacobus Hugo has satisfied

4:42 himself that Eunice Homer meant to insinuate John Calvin, by Antinius Martin Luther, by Latofoggi Protestants in general, and by the Harpies. The Dutch our more modern Scholassies are equally acute. These fellows demonstrate a hidden meaning in the Antivillians, a parable of the Powaton new views in cock Robin and Transcendentalism in hop O my Thumb. In short, it has been shown that no man can sit down to write without a very profound design. Thus, to authors in general, much trouble is spared. A novelist, for example, need have no care of his moral It is there, that is to say, it is somewhere, and the moral and the critics can take care of themselves. When the proper time arrives, all that the gentleman intended and all that he did not intend, will be brought to light in the dial or the down Easter, together with all that he ought to have intended, and the rest that he clearly meant to intend, so that it will all come very straight in the end. There is no just ground therefore for the charge brought against me by certain ignoramuses that I have never written a moral tale, or in more precise words, a tale with a moral. They are not the critics predestined to bring me out and develop my morals. That

6:14 is the secret. By and by the North American quarterly humdrum will make them ashamed of their stupidity. In the meantime, by way of saying execution, by way of mitigating the accusations against me, I offer the sad history appended, a history about whose obvious moral there can be no question whatever. Since he who runs may read it in the large capitals which form the title of the tale, I should have credit for this arrangement, a far wiser one than that of la Fontaine and others, who reserve the impression to be conveyed until the last moment, and thus sneak it in at the fag end of their fables. In functi injuria nay aficient was a law of the twelve tables, and de mortis nil nisi bonum is an excellent injunction, even if the dead in question be nothing but dead small beer. It is not my design, therefore, to vituperate my deceased friend Toby. Dammit, he was a sad dog.

7:19 It is true and a dog's death. It was that he died, but he himself was not to blame for his vices. He grew out of a personal defect in his mother. She did her best in the way of flogging him while an infant, For duties to her well regulated mind were always pleasures and babies like tough steaks or the modern Greek olive trees, or invariably the better for beating. But poor woman, she had the misfortune to be left handed, and a child flogged left handedly had better be left unflogged. The world revolves from right to left. It will not do to whip a baby from left to right. If each blow when the proper direction, drives an evil propensity out, it follows that every thump in an opposite one knocks its quota of wickedness in. I was often present at Toby's chastisements, and even by the way in which he kicked, I could perceive that he was getting worse and worse every day. At last, I saw through the tears in my eyes that there was no hope of the villain at all. And one day, when he had been cuffed until he grew so black in the face that one might have mistaken him for a little African, and no effect have been produced beyond that of making him wriggle himself into a fit. I could stand it no longer, but went down upon my knees, forthwith and uplifting my voice, made prophecy of his ruin the fact that his precocity in vice was awful. At

8:50 months of age, he used to get into such passions that he was unable to articulate. At six months I caught him gnawing a pack of cards. At seven months he was in when the constant habit of catching and kissing the female babies. At eight months he peremptorily refused to put his signature to the temperance pledge. Thus he went on increasing in iniquity month after month, until at the close of the first year he not only insisted upon wearing mustaches, but had contracted a propensity for cursing and swearing, and for backing his assertions by bets. Through this latter most ungentlemanly practiced the ruin which I had predicted to Toby Dammit overtook him. At last. The fashion had grown with his growth and strengthened with his strength, so that when he came to be a man. He could scarcely utter a sentence without interlarding it with a proposition to gamble. Not that he actually laid wagers. No, I will do my friend the justice to say that he would as soon have laid eggs with him. The thing was a mere formula, nothing more. His expression on this head had no meaning attached to them. Whatever they were, simply, if not altogether, innocent expletives, imaginative phrases wherewith to round off a sentence. When he said I'll bet you so and so, nobody ever thought of taking him up. But still I could not help thinking it my duty to put him down. The habit was an immoral one, and

10:22 so I told him it was a vulgar one. This I begged him to believe. I was discounteranced by society. Here I said nothing but the truth. It was forbidden by act of Congress. Here I had not the slightest intention of telling a lie. I remonstrated, but to no purpose. I demonstrated in vain. I entreated, he smiled, I implored, he laughed. I preached, he sneered. I threatened, he swore. I kicked him. He called for the police. I pulled his nose, he blew it, and offered to bet the devil his head. That I would not venture to try that experiment again. Poverty was another vice which the peculiar physical deficiency of Damit's mother had entailed upon her son.

11:14 He was detestably poor, and this was the reason, no doubt that his expletive expressions about betting seldom took a pecuniary turn. I will not be bound to say that I ever heard him make use of such a figure of speech as I'll bet you a dollar. It was usually i'll bet you what you please, or i'll bet you what you dare, or i'll bet you a trifle, or else more significantly still, i'll bet the devil my head. This latter form seemed to please him best, perhaps because it involved the least risk, For Dammit had become excessively parsimonious.

11:55 Had anyone taken him up, his head was small, and thus his loss would have been small too. But these are my own reflections, and I am by no means sure that I am right in attributing them to him. At all events, the phrase in question grew daily in favor, notwithstanding the gross impropriety of a man betting his brains like bank notes. But this was a point which my friend's perversity of disposition would not permit him to comprehend. In the end, he abandoned all other forms of wager and gave himself up to I'll bet the devil my head, with a pertinacity and exclusiveness of devotion that displeased not less than it surprised me. I am always displeased by circumstances for which I cannot account. Mysteries force a man to think, and so injure his health. The truth is, there was something in the air with which mister Dammit was wont to give utterance to his offensive expression, something in his manner of enunciation which at first interested and afterwards made me very uneasy, Something which, for want of a more definite term, at present I must be permitted to call queer, but which mister Coleridge would have called mystical, mister Kant pantheistical, mister Carlyle twisticle, and mister Emerson hyperquisitistical.

13:18 I began to not like it at all. Mister Dammit's soul was in a perilous state. I resolved to bring all my eloquence into play. To save it, I vowed to serve him as Saint Patrick in the Irish Chronicle is said to have served the toad, that is to say, awaken him to a sense of his situation. I addressed myself to the task forthwith. Once more, I betook myself to remonstrance. Again, I collected my energies for a final attempt at expostulation. When I had made an end of my lecture, mister Dammitt indulged himself in some very equivocal behavior. For some moments he remained silent, merely looking at me inquisitively in the face. But presently he threw his head to one side and elevated his eyebrows to a great extent.

14:06 Then he spread out the palms of his hands and shrugged up his shoulders. Then he winked with the right eye. Then he repeated the operation with the left. Then he shut them both up very tight. Then he opened them both so very wide that I became seriously alarmed for the consequences. Then, applying his thumb to his nose, he thought proper to make an indescribable movement with the rest of his fingers. Finally, setting his arms akimbo, He condescended to reply, I can call to mind only the heads of his discourse. He would be obliged to me if I would hold my tongue. He wished none of my advice.

14:47 He despised all my insinuations. He was old enough to take care of himself. Did I still think him baby? Damn it? Did I mean to say anything against his character? Did I intend to insult him? Was I fool? Was my maternal parent aware in a word of my absence from the domiciliary residence. He would put this latter question to me as to a man of veracity, and he would bind himself to abide by my reply. Once more, he would demand explicitly, if my mother knew that I was out my confusion, he said, betrayed me, and he would be willing to bet the devil his head that she did not. Mister dammit, did not pause for my rejounder.

15:29 Turning upon his heel, he left my presence with undignified precipitation. It was well for him that he did so. My feelings had been wounded, even my anger had been aroused, For once I would have taken him upon his insulting wager I would have won for the arch enemy, mister Dammit's little head. For the fact is, my Mamma was very well aware of my merely temporary absence from home. But Koda shefa mideh, heaven gives relief. As the muscle men say when you tread upon their toes. It was in pursuance of my duty that I had been insulted, and I bore the insult like a man. It now seemed to me, however, that I had done all that could be required of me in the case of this miserable individual, and I resolved to trouble him no longer with my counsel, but to leave him to his conscience and himself. But although I forebore to intrude with my advice, I could not bring myself to give up his society altogether.

16:30 I even went so far as to humor some of his less reprehensible propensities. And there were times when I found myself lauding his wicked jokes as epicures do mustard, with tears in my eyes. So profoundly did it grieve me to hear his evil talk. One fine day, having strolled out altogether arm in arm our root led us in the direction of a river. There was a bridge, and we resolved to cross it. It was roofed over by way of protection from the weather, and the archway, having but few windows, was thus very uncomfortably dark. As we entered the passage. The contrast between the external glare and the interior gloom struck heavily upon my spirits, but so upon those of the unhappy dammit, who offered to bet the devil's head that I was hipped. He seemed to be an unusual good humor. He was excessively lively, so much so that I entertained. I know not what of uneasy suspicion. It is not impossible that he was affected with the transcendentals. I am not well enough versed, however, in the diagnosis of this disease to speak with decision upon the point, and unhappily there were none of my friends of the dial present. I suggest the idea, nevertheless, because of a certain species of austere merry andrewism, which seemed to beset my poor friend and caused him to make quite a tom fool of himself. Nothing would serve him but wriggling and skipping about under and over everything

18:01 that came in his way, now shouting out and now lisping out all manner of odd, little and big words, yet preserving the gravest face in the world. All the time, I really could not make up my mind whether to kick or to pity him. At length, having passed nearly across the bridge, we approached the termination of the footway, when our progress was impeded by a turnstile of some height. Through this I made my way quietly, pushing it around as usual. But this turn would not serve the turn of mister Dammit. He insisted upon leaping the style and said he could cut a pigeon wing over it in the air. Now this conscientiously speaking, I did not think he could do. The best pigeon winger over all kinds of style was my friend, mister Carlyle, And as I knew he could not do it, I would not believe that it could be done by Toby Dammit. I therefore told him, in so many words that he was a braggadocio and could not do what he said. For this I had reason to be sorry afterwards, for he straightway offered to bet the devil his head that he could.

19:13 I was about to reply, notwithstanding my previous resolutions, with some remonstrance against his impiety, when I heard close at my elbow a slight cough which sounded very much like the ejaculation ahem. I started and looked about me in surprise. My glance at length fell into a nook of the framework of the bridge, and upon the figure of a little, lame, old gentleman of venerable aspect. Nothing could be more revered than his whole appearance, for he not only had a full suit of black, but his shirt was perfectly clean, and the collar turned very neatly down over a white cravat, while his hair was parted in front like a girl's.

19:59 His hands were clasped pensively together over his stomach, and his two eyes were carefully rolled up into the top of his head. Upon observing him more closely, I perceived that he wore a black silk apron over his small clothes, and this was a thing which I thought very odd. Before I had time to make any remark, however, upon so singular a circumstance, he interrupted me with a second ahem. To this observation, I was not immediately prepared to reply. The fact is, remarks of this laconic nature are nearly unanswerable. I have known a quarterly review nonplussed by the word fudge.

20:41 I am not ashamed to say, therefore, that I turned to mister Dammit for assistance. Damn It, said I, What are you about? Don't you hear? The gentleman, says ahem. I looked sternly at my friend while I thus addressed him, for to say the truth, I felt particularly puzzled. And when a man is particularly puzzled, he must knit his brows and look savage, or else he is pretty sure to look like a fool. Damn It, observed I. Although this sounded very much like an oath, than which nothing was farther from my thoughts. Damn It, I suggested. The gentleman, says a hem. I do not attempt to defend my remark on the score of profundity. I did not think it profound myself. But I have noticed that the effect of our speeches is not always proportionate with their importance in our own eyes. And if I had shot mister d through and through with a Paxian bomb, or knocked him in the head with the poets and poetry of America.

21:41 He could hardly have been more disconfitted than when I addressed him with those simple words, damn it, what are you about, don't you hear? The gentleman says? A hem, you don't say, gasped he at length, after turning more colors than a pirate runs up one after the other when chased by a man of war. Are you quite sure? He said that. Well, at all events, I am in for it now, and may as well put a bold face upon the matter. Here goes then ahem. At this, the little old gentleman seemed pleased. God only knows why. He left his station at the nook of the bridge, limped forward with a gracious air, took damn it by the hand, and shook it cordially, looking all the while straight up in his face, with an air of the most unadulterated benignitye which it is possible for the mind of a man to imagine. I am quite sure you will win it, damn it, said he, with the frankest of all smiles. But we are obligated to have a trial, you know, for the sake of mere form. Ahem, replied my friend, taking his coat, with a deep sigh, tying a pocket handkerchief around his waist, and producing an unaccountable alteration in his countenance by twisting up his eyes and bringing down the corners of his mouth. Ahem, and a heem, said he again, after a pause, and not another word more than a heem? Did I ever know him to

23:12 say after that? Aha, thought I, without expressing myself aloud. This is quite a remarkable silence on the part of Toby, dammit, and is no doubt a consequence of his verbosity upon a previous occasion. One extreme induces another. I wonder if he has forgotten the many unanswerable questions which he propounded to me so fluently on the day when I gave him my last lecture. At all events, he is cured of the transcendentals. Ahem, here, replied Toby, just as if he had been reading my thoughts, and looking like a very old sheep in a reverie. The old gentleman now took him by the arm and led him more into the shade of the bridge, a few paces back from the turnstile. My good fellow said he, I'm make it a point of conscience to allow you this much run wait here till I take my place by the style, so that I may see whether you go over it handsomely and transcendentally, and don't omit any flourishes of the pigeon wing a mere form, you know, I will say one, two three and away. Mind you start at the word away. Here.

24:23 He took his position by the style, paused a moment as if in profound reflection, then looked up and I thought, smiled very slightly, then tightened the strings of his apron, then took a long look at damn it, and finally gave the word as agreed upon, one two three and away, punctually at the word away, my poor friend set off in a strong gallop. The style was not very high like mister Lord's, nor yet very low like the mister Lord's reviewers. But upon the whole I made sure that he would clear it. And then what if he did not? Ah, that was the question, what if he did not? What right? Said?

25:08 I had the old gentleman to make any other gentleman jump the little old dot and carry one? Who is he? If he asks me to jump? I won't do it. That's flat, And I don't care who the devil is. The bridge, as I say, was arched and covered in in a very ridiculous manner, and there was a most uncomfortable echo about it at all times, an echo which I never before so particularly observed as when I uttered the last four words of my remark. But what I said, or what I thought, or what I heard occupied only an instant. In less than five seconds from his starting, my poor Toby had taken the leap. I saw him run nimbly and spring grandly from the floor of the bridge, cutting the most awful flourishes with his legs as he went up. I saw him high in the air, pigeon winging it to admiration, just over the top of the stile, And of course I thought it an unusually singular thing that he did not continue to go over. But the whole leap was the affair of a moment, and before I had a chance to make any profound reflections, down came mister Dammitt, on the flat of his back, on the same side of the stile from which he had started.

26:21 At the same instant I saw the old gentleman limping off at the top of his speed, having caught and wrapped up in his apron something that fell heavily into it from the darkness of the arch just over the turnstile. At all this I was much astonished, but I had no leisure to think, for mister Dammit lay particularly still, and I concluded that his feelings had been hurt, and that he stood in need of my assistance. I hurried up to him and found that he had received what might be termed a serious injury. The truth is he had been deprived of his head, which after close search I could not find anywhere. So I determined to take him home and send for the Homeopathesists. In the meantime, a thought struck me, and I threw open an adjacent window of the bridge when the sad truth flashed upon me.

27:15 At once, about five feet just above the top of the turnstile, and crossing the arch of the footpath so as to constitute a brace, there extended a flat iron bar, lying with its breath horizontally and forming one of a series that served to strengthen the structure throughout its extent. With the edge of this brace, it appeared evident that the neck of my unfortunate friend had come precisely in contact. He did not long survive his terrible loss. The homeopathists did not give him little enough physic and what little they did give him he hesitated to take. So in the end he grew worse, and at length died, A lesson to all riotous livers. I bedewed his grave with my tears, worked a bar sinister on his family's escutcheon, and for the general expenses of his funeral, sent in my very moderate bill to the Transcendentalists. The scoundrels refused to pay it, so I had mister Dammit dug up at once and sold him for dog's meat.