E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Bag o’ Nails.
Some hundreds of years ago there stood in the Tyburn Road, Oxford Street, a public-house called The Bacchanals: the sign was Pan and the Satyrs. The jolly god, with his cloven hoof and his horns, was called “The devil;” and the word Bacchanals soon got corrupted into “Bag o’ Nails.” The Devil and the Bag o’ Nails is a sign not uncommon even now in the midland counties.
tis.
