Why Does the Devil Have a Silver Nose I recently heard an Italian fairy-tale from a friend, in which a girl rescues her sisters from the Devil's basement. I've identified the tale as _How the Devil Married Three Sisters_ (sometimes _Silver Nose_ or _The Devil's Silver Nose_ ). No matter the title, in the story the Devil has a nose made out of silver. Is there a traditional explanation for this, or even other tales where it is mentioned? A peremptory google search and search of this Stack Exchange didn't find me anything besides various tellings and re-tellings of the same story.

Italo Calvino mentioned in his _Italian Folktales_ that the silver nose was rare even in Italian tales.

But a silver nose was sometimes used as a prosthetic, when you lost a nose to syphilis. Hence, a silver nose is a sign of loose living.