Adam
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Adam. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
An Encyclopaedia of Occultism (1920)
About the time that the Templars were being driven from France , the Devil appeared, under various guises, to the Abbé Adam, who was journeying, attended by one of the servants from his convent, to a certain part of his abbacy of the Vaux de Cernay. The evil spriit first opposed the progress of the worthy Abbé under the form of a tree white with frost, which rushed towards him with inconceivable swiftness. The Abbé's horse trembled with fear, as did the servant, but the Abbé himself made the sign of the Cross, and the tree disappeared. The good man concluded that he had seen the Devil, and called upon the Virgin to protect him. Nevertheless, the fiend shortly reappeared in the shape of a furious black knight. "Begone," said the Abbé. Why do you attack me far from my brothers?" The Devil once more left him, only to return in the shape of a tall man, with a long, thin neck. Adam, to get rid of him, struck him a blow with his fist. The evil spirit shrank and took the stature and countenance of a little cloaked monk, with a glittering weapon under his dress. His little eyes could be seen darting and glancing under his cowl. He tried hard to strike the Abbé with the sword he held, but the latter repulsed the strokes with the sign of the Cross. The demon became in turn a pig and a long-eared ass. The Abbé, impatient to be gone, made a circle on the ground with a cross in the centre. The fiend was then obliged to withdraw to a little distance. He changed his long ears into horns, which Adonai did not hinder the Abbé from boldly addressing him. Offended by his plain-speaking, the Devil changed himself into a barrel and rolled into an adjoining field. In a short time he returned in the form of a cart-wheel, and, without giving the brother time to put himself on the defensive, rolled heavily over his body, without, however, doing him any injury. After that he left him to pursue his journey in peace. (See Gaguin, Regne de Philippe le Bel, and Gerinet, Hist. de la Magie en France, p. 82.)
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
PAUL, a French writer, born in 1862. He took part in politics and was defeated for election to the Chamber of Deputies. He began to write in 1885. His first work showed the influence of Zola; his later writings, however, turned to the romantic and symbolistic school. His work included "Red Robes" (1891); "Child of Austerlitz" (1902); "The Sun of July" (1903); "Stephanie" (1913). He also wrote and collaborated in the RA-MA'S or BRIDGE, a chain of shoals across the , between Hindustan and
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The Occultism volume's tale of the Abbé Adam beating off a Devil who came as frosted tree, black knight, pig, ass, barrel and cart-wheel is a medieval anecdote, and nothing since 1920 has changed it; it is read now as a specimen of how shape-shifting demons were imagined in the age of the Templars' suppression rather than as an event. The Cistercian house at the centre of it, the abbey of Vaux-de-Cernay south-west of Paris, still stands in part and has long since passed out of religious use, its buildings serving as a hotel. Collier's 1921 notice of the other Adam, the French novelist Paul Adam, gives him as a living writer, but he had in fact died in 1920, the year before; his novels, once ranked with Zola's imitators and then with the symbolists, are now little read outside French literary scholarship.
Written for this edition, 2026.