The Devil's Footprints
Encyclopedia
The Devil's Footprints is a name given to a phenomenon that occurred in February 1855 around the Exe Estuary
in South Devon
, England
. After a heavy snowfall, trails of hoof
-like marks appeared overnight in the snow covering a total distance of some 40 to 100 miles. The footprints were so called because some people believed that they were the tracks of Satan
, as they were allegedly made by a cloven hoof
. Many theories have been put forward to explain the incident, and some aspects of its veracity have also been called into question.
-like marks appeared in the snow. These footprints, most of which measured around four inches long, three inches across, between eight and sixteen inches apart and mostly in a single file, were reported from over thirty locations across Devon and a couple in Dorset. It was estimated that the total distance of the tracks amounted to between 40 and 100 miles. Houses, rivers, haystacks and other obstacles were travelled straight over, and footprints appeared on the tops of snow-covered roofs and high walls which lay in the footprints' path, as well as leading up to and exiting various drain pipes of as small as a four-inch diameter.
The area in which the prints appeared extended from Exmouth
, up to Topsham
, and across the Exe Estuary
to Dawlish
and Teignmouth
. R.H. Busk, in an article published in Notes and Queries
in 1890, stated that footprints also appeared further afield, as far south as Totnes
and Torquay
, and that there were other reports of the prints as far away as Weymouth (Dorset
) and even Lincolnshire
.
There were also attendant rumours about sightings of a "devil-like figure" in the Devon area during the scare. Many townspeople armed themselves and attempted to track down the beast responsible, without success.
Over many years the noted researcher Mike Dash
collated all the available primary
and secondary
source material into a paper entitled The Devil's Hoofmarks: Source Material on the Great Devon Mystery of 1855 which was published in Fortean Studies in 1994.
points out, is that the eye-witness descriptions of the footprints varied from person to person.
In his Fortean Studies article, Mike Dash concluded that there was no one source for the "hoofmarks": some of the tracks were probably hoax
es, some were made by "common quadrupeds" such as donkeys and ponies, and some by wood mice
(see below). He admitted, though, that these cannot explain all the reported marks and "the mystery remains".
suggested that "an experimental balloon" released by mistake from Devonport Dockyard
had left the mysterious tracks by trailing two shackles on the end of its mooring ropes. His source was a local man, Major Carter, whose grandfather had worked at Devonport at the time. Carter claimed that the incident had been hushed up because the balloon also wrecked a number of conservatories
, greenhouses, and windows before finally descending to earth in Honiton
.
While this could explain the shape of the prints, sceptics have disagreed about whether the balloon could have travelled such a random zigzag course without its trailing ropes and shackles becoming caught in a tree or similar obstruction.
s such as wood mice
. The print left behind after a mouse leaps resembles that of a cloven animal, due to the motions of its limbs when it jumps. Dash stated that the theory that the Devon prints were made by rodents was originally proposed as long ago as March 1855, in The Illustrated London News.
s escaped from a private menagerie
(Mr. Fische's, I believe) at Sidmouth
." It seems, though, that nobody ascertained whether the kangaroos had escaped, nor how they could have crossed the Exe estuary, and Musgrave himself said that he only came up with the story to distract his parishioners' concerns about a visit from the devil:
:
In the Illustrated London News of 17 March 1855, a correspondent from Heidelberg
wrote, "upon the authority of a Polish Doctor in Medicine", that on the Piaskowa-góra (Sand Hill) a small elevation on the border of Galicia, but in Congress Poland
, such marks are to be seen in the snow every year, and sometimes in the sand of this hill, and "are attributed by the inhabitants to supernatural influences".
On the night of 12 March 2009 marks claimed to be similar to those left in 1855 were found in Devon.
Exe Estuary
The Exe Estuary is an estuary on the south coast of Devon, England.The estuary starts just to the south of the city of Exeter, and extends south for approximately eight miles to meet the English Channel...
in South Devon
South Devon
South Devon is the southern part of the county of Devon, England.South Devon may also refer to*South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty*South Devon *South Devon College*South Devon cattle, a breed of cattle...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. After a heavy snowfall, trails of hoof
Hoof
A hoof , plural hooves or hoofs , is the tip of a toe of an ungulate mammal, strengthened by a thick horny covering. The hoof consists of a hard or rubbery sole, and a hard wall formed by a thick nail rolled around the tip of the toe. The weight of the animal is normally borne by both the sole...
-like marks appeared overnight in the snow covering a total distance of some 40 to 100 miles. The footprints were so called because some people believed that they were the tracks of Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
, as they were allegedly made by a cloven hoof
Cloven hoof
A cloven hoof is a hoof split into two toes. This is found on members of the mammalian order Artiodactyla. Examples of mammals that possess this type of hoof are deer and sheep. In folklore and popular culture, a cloven hoof has long been associated with the Devil.The two digits of cloven hoofed...
. Many theories have been put forward to explain the incident, and some aspects of its veracity have also been called into question.
Incident
On the night of 7–8 February 1855 and one or two later nights, after a heavy snowfall, a series of hoofHoof
A hoof , plural hooves or hoofs , is the tip of a toe of an ungulate mammal, strengthened by a thick horny covering. The hoof consists of a hard or rubbery sole, and a hard wall formed by a thick nail rolled around the tip of the toe. The weight of the animal is normally borne by both the sole...
-like marks appeared in the snow. These footprints, most of which measured around four inches long, three inches across, between eight and sixteen inches apart and mostly in a single file, were reported from over thirty locations across Devon and a couple in Dorset. It was estimated that the total distance of the tracks amounted to between 40 and 100 miles. Houses, rivers, haystacks and other obstacles were travelled straight over, and footprints appeared on the tops of snow-covered roofs and high walls which lay in the footprints' path, as well as leading up to and exiting various drain pipes of as small as a four-inch diameter.
The area in which the prints appeared extended from Exmouth
Exmouth, Devon
Exmouth is a port town, civil parish and seaside resort in East Devon, England, sited on the east bank of the mouth of the River Exe. In 2001, it had a population of 32,972.-History:...
, up to Topsham
Topsham, Devon
Topsham is a suburb of Exeter in the county of Devon, England, on the east side of the River Exe, immediately north of its confluence with the River Clyst and the former's estuary, between Exeter and Exmouth. Although village-sized, with a current population of around 5,023, it was designated a...
, and across the Exe Estuary
Exe Estuary
The Exe Estuary is an estuary on the south coast of Devon, England.The estuary starts just to the south of the city of Exeter, and extends south for approximately eight miles to meet the English Channel...
to Dawlish
Dawlish
Dawlish is a town and civil parish in Teignbridge on the south coast of Devon in England, from the county town of Exeter. It has a population of 12,819...
and Teignmouth
Teignmouth
Teignmouth is a town and civil parish in Teignbridge in the English county of Devon, situated on the north bank of the estuary mouth of the River Teign about 14 miles south of Exeter. It has a population of 14,413. In 1690, it was the last place in England to be invaded by a foreign power...
. R.H. Busk, in an article published in Notes and Queries
Notes and Queries
Notes and Queries is a long-running quarterly scholarly journal that publishes short articles related to "English language and literature, lexicography, history, and scholarly antiquarianism". Its emphasis is on "the factual rather than the speculative"...
in 1890, stated that footprints also appeared further afield, as far south as Totnes
Totnes
Totnes is a market town and civil parish at the head of the estuary of the River Dart in Devon, England within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty...
and Torquay
Torquay
Torquay is a town in the unitary authority area of Torbay and ceremonial county of Devon, England. It lies south of Exeter along the A380 on the north of Torbay, north-east of Plymouth and adjoins the neighbouring town of Paignton on the west of the bay. Torquay’s population of 63,998 during the...
, and that there were other reports of the prints as far away as Weymouth (Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
) and even Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...
.
There were also attendant rumours about sightings of a "devil-like figure" in the Devon area during the scare. Many townspeople armed themselves and attempted to track down the beast responsible, without success.
Evidence
There is little first-hand evidence of the phenomenon. The only known documents came to light after the publication in 1950 of an article in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association asking for further information about the event. This resulted in the discovery of a collection of papers belonging to Reverend H. T. Ellacombe, the vicar of Clyst St George in the 1850s. These papers included letters addressed to the vicar from his friends, among them the Reverend G. M. Musgrove, the vicar of Withycombe Raleigh; the draft of a letter to The Illustrated London News marked 'not for publication'; and several apparent tracings of the footprints.Over many years the noted researcher Mike Dash
Mike Dash
Mike Dash is a Welsh writer, historian and researcher. He is best known for his books and articles looking at unusual historical events, anomalous phenomena, and strange beliefs.-Biography:...
collated all the available primary
Primary source
Primary source is a term used in a number of disciplines to describe source material that is closest to the person, information, period, or idea being studied....
and secondary
Secondary source
In scholarship, a secondary source is a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere. A secondary source contrasts with a primary source, which is an original source of the information being discussed; a primary source can be a person with direct...
source material into a paper entitled The Devil's Hoofmarks: Source Material on the Great Devon Mystery of 1855 which was published in Fortean Studies in 1994.
Theories
Many explanations have been put forward for the incident. Some investigators are sceptical that the tracks really extended for over a hundred miles, arguing that no-one would have been able to follow their entire course in a single day. Another reason for scepticism, as Joe NickellJoe Nickell
Joe Nickell is a prominent skeptical investigator of the paranormal. He also works as an historical document consultant and has helped expose such famous forgeries as the purported diary of Jack the Ripper. In 2002 he was one of a number of experts asked by scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr...
points out, is that the eye-witness descriptions of the footprints varied from person to person.
In his Fortean Studies article, Mike Dash concluded that there was no one source for the "hoofmarks": some of the tracks were probably hoax
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
es, some were made by "common quadrupeds" such as donkeys and ponies, and some by wood mice
Wood mouse
The wood mouse is a common murid rodent from Europe and northwestern Africa. It is closely related to the yellow-necked mouse but differs in that it has no band of yellow fur around the neck, has slightly smaller ears, and is usually slightly smaller overall: around 90 mm in length...
(see below). He admitted, though, that these cannot explain all the reported marks and "the mystery remains".
Balloon
Author Geoffrey HouseholdGeoffrey Household
Geoffrey Edward West Household was a prolific British novelist who specialized in thrillers. He is best known for his novel Rogue Male .-Personal life:...
suggested that "an experimental balloon" released by mistake from Devonport Dockyard
HMNB Devonport
Her Majesty's Naval Base Devonport , is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy . HMNB Devonport is located in Devonport, in the west of the city of Plymouth in Devon, England...
had left the mysterious tracks by trailing two shackles on the end of its mooring ropes. His source was a local man, Major Carter, whose grandfather had worked at Devonport at the time. Carter claimed that the incident had been hushed up because the balloon also wrecked a number of conservatories
Conservatory (greenhouse)
A conservatory is a room having glass roof and walls, typically attached to a house on only one side, used as a greenhouse or a sunroom...
, greenhouses, and windows before finally descending to earth in Honiton
Honiton
Honiton is a town and civil parish in East Devon, situated close to the River Otter, north east of Exeter in the county of Devon. The town's name is pronounced in two ways, and , each pronunciation having its adherents...
.
While this could explain the shape of the prints, sceptics have disagreed about whether the balloon could have travelled such a random zigzag course without its trailing ropes and shackles becoming caught in a tree or similar obstruction.
Hopping mice
Mike Dash suggested that at least some of the prints, including some of those found on rooftops, could have been made by hopping rodentRodent
Rodentia is an order of mammals also known as rodents, characterised by two continuously growing incisors in the upper and lower jaws which must be kept short by gnawing....
s such as wood mice
Wood mouse
The wood mouse is a common murid rodent from Europe and northwestern Africa. It is closely related to the yellow-necked mouse but differs in that it has no band of yellow fur around the neck, has slightly smaller ears, and is usually slightly smaller overall: around 90 mm in length...
. The print left behind after a mouse leaps resembles that of a cloven animal, due to the motions of its limbs when it jumps. Dash stated that the theory that the Devon prints were made by rodents was originally proposed as long ago as March 1855, in The Illustrated London News.
Hysteria
It is also often suggested that the footprints were merely a case of mass hysteria, caused by the sighting of various animal tracks and lumping them together as one.Kangaroo
In a letter to the Illustrated London News in 1855, Rev. G. M. Musgrave wrote: "In the course of a few days a report was circulated that a couple of kangarooKangaroo
A kangaroo is a marsupial from the family Macropodidae . In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, especially those of the genus Macropus, Red Kangaroo, Antilopine Kangaroo, Eastern Grey Kangaroo and Western Grey Kangaroo. Kangaroos are endemic to the country...
s escaped from a private menagerie
Menagerie
A menagerie is/was a form of keeping common and exotic animals in captivity that preceded the modern zoological garden. The term was first used in seventeenth century France in reference to the management of household or domestic stock. Later, it came to be used primarily in reference to...
(Mr. Fische's, I believe) at Sidmouth
Sidmouth
Sidmouth is a small town on the English Channel coast in Devon, South West England. The town lies at the mouth of the River Sid in the East Devon district, south east of Exeter. It has a population of about 15,000, of whom 40% are over 65....
." It seems, though, that nobody ascertained whether the kangaroos had escaped, nor how they could have crossed the Exe estuary, and Musgrave himself said that he only came up with the story to distract his parishioners' concerns about a visit from the devil:
Similar incidents
Reports of similar anomalous, obstacle-unheeded footprints exist from other parts of the world, although none is of such a scale as that of the case of the Devil's Footprints. This example was reported 15 years earlier in The TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
:
In the Illustrated London News of 17 March 1855, a correspondent from Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
wrote, "upon the authority of a Polish Doctor in Medicine", that on the Piaskowa-góra (Sand Hill) a small elevation on the border of Galicia, but in Congress Poland
Congress Poland
The Kingdom of Poland , informally known as Congress Poland , created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, was a personal union of the Russian parcel of Poland with the Russian Empire...
, such marks are to be seen in the snow every year, and sometimes in the sand of this hill, and "are attributed by the inhabitants to supernatural influences".
On the night of 12 March 2009 marks claimed to be similar to those left in 1855 were found in Devon.
See also
- Jersey DevilJersey DevilThe Jersey Devil is a legendary creature or cryptid said to inhabit the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey, United States. The creature is often described as a flying biped with hooves, but there are many variations...
– the appearance in January 1909 of similar mysterious footprints in New JerseyNew JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, USA - Phantom kangarooPhantom kangarooPeriodically, reports of kangaroos, wallabies, or their accompanying footprints have been made in places where one would not expect them—specifically, areas where there is no native population. Some explanations put forth are escaped zoo or circus animals, or publicity stunts by local businesses...
- The Great Thunderstorm, WidecombeThe Great Thunderstorm, WidecombeThe Great Thunderstorm of Widecombe-in-the-Moor in Dartmoor, Kingdom of England, took place on Sunday, 21 October 1638, when the church of St Pancras was apparently struck by a ball lightning during a severe thunderstorm. An afternoon service was taking place at the time, and the building was...
– another legend of the Devil in Devon - Urban legendUrban legendAn urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
Further reading
- Charles FortCharles FortCharles Hoy Fort was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. Today, the terms Fortean and Forteana are used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold well and are still in print today.-Biography:Charles Hoy Fort was born in 1874 in Albany, New York, of Dutch...
, The Book of the DamnedThe Book of the DamnedThe Book of the Damned was the first published nonfiction work of the author Charles Fort . Dealing with various types of anomalous phenomena including UFOs, strange falls of both organic and inorganic materials from the sky, odd weather patterns, the possible existence of creatures generally held...
, Chapter 28. - The Devil's Footprints (Mysterious Britain & Ireland)