The Devils Footprints
Along the south Devon coast in 1855 there is an account of a great mystery.
Throughout the Exe valley, during an especially cold winter, a number of animal marks were found left in the snow, they became known as The Devil’s Footprints.
Why such a fantastical claim you ask? Well many of the locals became concerned, not because cattle, or wild animal tracks were unusual, but due to the strange singular nature of these footprints, as if something animalistic were walking upright and at a great stride.
And it did not help matters that some of them were left on the tops of walls twelve foot high, and left without damage to any structure or shrubbery surrounding them. The tracks, although not always the same, sometimes similar to a donkeys, sometimes a horse, were even found in some places to appear as if they were cut into the snow and ice by a hot iron… or fiery hooves, and found over miles and miles of countryside, throughout village, churchyard and lane alike.
The trail was said to range from Totnes to Littleham (covering around 100 miles), and at Dawlish they led into a thicket where dogs were brought in, with hopes to flush whatever it was from the undergrowth. The dogs were not keen however, and were said to have retreated, howling in fear.
The news of this extraordinary phenomenon travelled far, with reports in The Times and Illustrated London News, with accounts from local eyewitnesses that spread the intrigue nationwide.
A Reverend even went so far, in an attempt to calm his flock, to claim it was a kangaroo that left the tracks (how many kangeroos were in Victorian England I’m uncertain) but he was quickly ridiculed for it and gave this defence to the London News:
“I certainly did not pin my faith to that version of the mystery, or call upon others to believe it ex cathedra but the state of mind of the villagers, the labourers, their wives and children, and old crones, and trembling old men dreading to stir out after sunset, or to go out half a mile into lanes and byways, under the conviction that this was the Devil’s work . . . rendered it very desirable to disperse ideas so derogatory to a christianised, but assuredly most unenlightened, community.”
— Reverend G M Musgrave of Withecombe
The Devils Footprints are still a mystery to this day but live on in many a locals memory, with a supernatural conclusion still delighting some, that Old Nick had paid Devon a visit… or possibly an escaped monkey from a travelling menagerie, or local pranksters, as truly none can be absolutely certain.
The Devils Footprints are the inspiration for one of the short stories in my and Kirsty Logan’s new chapbook/zine that is available now.
Sources for further reading:
The Lore of the Land, Jacqueline Simpson, ISBN-13 978-0141021034
Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain, Readers Digest, ISBN-13 978-0276001680