1948, William Thomas Walsh, New York: Macmillan, Chapter 12, p. 100,
He exorcised the fierce demoniac in the land of the Gerasens, whom no man had been able to tame or even to keep chained among the tombs; and Peter saw the fearful spectacle of the thousand devil-ridden swine thundering down a rocky declivity to perish in the churning waters, like damned souls plunging into hell.
(figurative) Suffering from mental anguish.
1878, William Morris, letter cited in John William Mackail, The Life of William Morris, London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899, Volume I, Chapter 11, p. 370,
I am still plaguy lame, a very limpet, but not so devil-ridden as I was. I think that came of that infernal furnace-heat we were in, the last few days of Italy […]
1938, R. Thurston Hopkins, “The Tower of the Forty Companions” in Ghosts and Goblins, London: The World’s Work,[1938], p. 88,
This, of course, was merely the semi-delirious notions of a man devil ridden by fever and nerves […]