The Devil and Bill Ellis

By SCOTT McLEMEE

From a small Penn State campus, a researcher probes folklore's links to power and pop culture

As we zip around rural Pennsylvania in a Honda Odyssey van that is the color of dried blood, Bill Ellis recalls a time when his daughter worried about the books on the occult that were piling up in his study.

"She's in college now," says Mr. Ellis, who is an associate professor of English at the Hazleton campus of Pennsylvania State University, "but at the time, Elizabeth was 10 or 12. I