The Devil and Tom Walker
E15064
The Devil and Tom Walker is a short story by Washington Irving that satirically retells the Faust legend through the tale of a miserly New Englander who makes a fateful bargain with the Devil.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Devil and Tom Walker canonical | 3 |
| Old Scratch and Tom Walker | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T110122 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Devil and Tom Walker Context triple: [Tales of a Traveller, notableStory, The Devil and Tom Walker]
-
A.
Rip Van Winkle
Rip Van Winkle is a classic American short story about a man who mysteriously sleeps through decades in the Catskill Mountains and awakens to a transformed world.
-
B.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is an 1820 short story by Washington Irving that tells the eerie tale of schoolmaster Ichabod Crane and the legendary Headless Horseman in a haunted New York valley.
-
C.
Sleepy Hollow
Sleepy Hollow is a legendary, eerily quiet Hudson Valley village in Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” famed for its ghostly atmosphere and the Headless Horseman.
-
D.
The Widow and Her Son
"The Widow and Her Son" is a sentimental short story by Washington Irving that portrays the quiet dignity and sorrow of a poor widow devoted to her only child.
-
E.
Much the Miller's Son
Much the Miller's Son is a member of Robin Hood’s band of Merry Men, often portrayed as a loyal but somewhat simple outlaw companion in English folklore.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Devil and Tom Walker Target entity description: The Devil and Tom Walker is a short story by Washington Irving that satirically retells the Faust legend through the tale of a miserly New Englander who makes a fateful bargain with the Devil.
-
A.
Rip Van Winkle
Rip Van Winkle is a classic American short story about a man who mysteriously sleeps through decades in the Catskill Mountains and awakens to a transformed world.
-
B.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is an 1820 short story by Washington Irving that tells the eerie tale of schoolmaster Ichabod Crane and the legendary Headless Horseman in a haunted New York valley.
-
C.
Sleepy Hollow
Sleepy Hollow is a legendary, eerily quiet Hudson Valley village in Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” famed for its ghostly atmosphere and the Headless Horseman.
-
D.
The Widow and Her Son
"The Widow and Her Son" is a sentimental short story by Washington Irving that portrays the quiet dignity and sorrow of a poor widow devoted to her only child.
-
E.
Much the Miller's Son
Much the Miller's Son is a member of Robin Hood’s band of Merry Men, often portrayed as a loyal but somewhat simple outlaw companion in English folklore.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (35)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
literary work
ⓘ
short story ⓘ |
| alternateName |
The Devil and Tom Walker
ⓘ
surface form:
Old Scratch and Tom Walker
|
| author | Washington Irving ⓘ |
| basedOn | Faust legend ⓘ |
| containsCharacter | moneylender ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| educationalUse | commonly taught in American high school literature courses ⓘ |
| firstPublicationYear | 1824 ⓘ |
| firstPublishedIn | Tales of a Traveller ⓘ |
| genre |
Gothic fiction
ⓘ
dark romanticism ⓘ satire ⓘ short story ⓘ |
| hasAdaptation |
radio adaptations
ⓘ
television adaptations ⓘ |
| includedIn | American literature anthologies ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| literaryMovement | American Romanticism ⓘ |
| literaryTechnique |
allegory
ⓘ
satire ⓘ |
| mainCharacter |
Tom Walker
ⓘ
Tom Walker's wife ⓘ the Devil ⓘ |
| narrativePerspective | third-person narration ⓘ |
| plotSummary | A miserly New Englander makes a bargain with the Devil for wealth and is ultimately claimed by him. ⓘ |
| publisher | John Murray ⓘ |
| settingCountry |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| settingLocation | New England ⓘ |
| settingTimePeriod | early 18th century ⓘ |
| theme |
consequences of making a pact with the Devil
ⓘ
greed ⓘ hypocrisy of religious pretenders ⓘ materialism ⓘ moral corruption ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Devil and Tom Walker Description of subject: The Devil and Tom Walker is a short story by Washington Irving that satirically retells the Faust legend through the tale of a miserly New Englander who makes a fateful bargain with the Devil.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Old Scratch and Tom Walker