The Devil Walked in Devon
Was the devil responsible for a set of 100-mile footprints in 1855?
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| Skeptoid #31 March 07, 2007 Podcast transcript | Listen | Subscribe |
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Snow fell all through the wee hours of February 8, 1855, in Southern Devon, a county in south western England.
When the sun rose at last, villagers throughout the county awoke to find a set of strange footprints stretching over 100 miles throughout the county. But it wasn't the length of the track or its sudden appearance that caused the most alarm. It was that the track at one point went right through a 14-foot-high wall, leaving untouched fresh snow on top of the wall. Elsewhere, the track went through a haystack, emerging on the other side. It was also found to enter a 4-inch drainpipe, and continue out the other end. In some places the track stopped inexplicably, only to reappear elsewhere. Most significantly, the track was found to have crossed a two mile stretch of river, picking right up again on the other side as if the maker of the footprints had walked on water. Theories and explanations abounded, until some clergymen suggested that perhaps the devil was on the prowl. From that moment on, the devil was said to have walked in Devon.
When people hear this story they generally imagine horseshoe-sized cloven hoof prints. However, this was not the case. All reports are that the footprints were between one and a half and two inches in size, and only eight inches apart. If this was the devil, he must have been more petite than he's usually depicted, and up on ballet pointe the whole way. No photographs exist but there are some detailed drawings of what the footprints looked like: basically, horseshoes. Now you've seen snow before, and you can imagine what a one and a half inch long footprint would look like in several inches of new fallen snow. Would it really be detailed enough to get a clear horseshoe drawing? Of course not. One suggested explanation was a field mouse, which does hop (often when there is snow that it can't easily walk through), and which does leave footprints in a V pattern. Each hind foot is long and narrow, and when they hop, their heels are together. A V is not so dissimilar from a horseshoe that the possibility cannot be discounted, given how indistinct the footprints would be in soft new snow.
Some accounts describe it as a heavy snowfall, and others say it was a light snowfall. Now, it does get quite cold in Devon county and they definitely do get snow, but it's seldom more than a few inches and it certainly doesn't last all winter. This episode was in February, so a heavy snowfall is reasonable, though heavy is a relative term. Several inches is probably a good estimate. A single snowstorm is not likely to cover more than 100 miles, but we don't really have enough information about the preceding days to know whether there might have already been enough coverage over the area in question.
Among the possible culprits nominated by the witnesses were some kangaroos known to have escaped from a private owner, a Mr. Fische. Although the track sounds too small for kangaroos, the size and age of Mr. Fische's kangaroos was not published, so possibly they were quite young, or they may have even been a smaller species, like one of the smaller species of wallaby, some of which are no larger than small rabbits when full grown. This explanation does have one strong piece of evidence in its favor: the fact that kangaroo tracks were almost certainly unfamiliar to residents of England in 1855. Given that this was a rural area, and snowfall was frequent, tracks of commonplace animals would have been easily recognized. Whether Mr. Fische recovered his kangaroos is not known.
The element of this story that does it the least credit is the claim that this track stretched for over a hundred miles. In 1855 the means didn't really exist in Devon to travel a hundred miles in a single day to verify the length of this track, especially when the way is obstructed by two mile stretches of water. Devon is quite rural: farmlands, brooks, forests, hills; and must be teeming with small wildlife. Small rodents would have been running around everywhere, leaving tracks that would be pretty hard to tell apart from the description of the devil's footprints. For a group of investigators to follow one set of tracks to the river, leave their task long enough to find a bridge or a boat, cross, resume the search and spend enough time as it would take to find a set of mouse-sized footprints two miles away from where they were last seen, and all of this while plenty of other mouse-sized forest creatures are hopping around through the snow leaving tracks, and yet be certain that they found the one and only set of devil footprints, strains credibility.
A prominent biologist named Richard Owen declared the tracks to be those of a badger, perhaps distorted by freeze-thaw action. Other nominations included raccoons, rats, swans, and otters. And, of course, the most famous nomination: that of the devil himself.
What of these feats of moving through walls and haystacks, walking on water, and moving through drainpipes? I find it hard to give these much weight. These are purely anecdotal, unsubstantiated, uncorroborated verbal reports during a media circus when phrases like "the devil walked in Devon" were being tossed around. Give me something concrete to talk about, and we can look for explanations. But if you must accept these at face value, I submit that most of the animals we've nominated are perfectly capable of fitting inside a four inch drainpipe, and often do enter such structures for security or while foraging. I've already dismissed the river crossing to my satisfaction. And as far as materializing through walls and haystacks, I don't have enough information to speculate. Was there sheltered ground around the base of the wall? Was the wall breached near its end? But mainly, is there really any reason to believe that this happened?
So who did walk in Devon that night? In the presence of so many possible and reasonable culprits, and in the extreme unlikelihood that this was indeed one single set of prints, I find little reason to turn to supernatural explanations. Commonplace events are frequently blown out of proportion, and everyday objects are just as frequently regarded as supernatural oddities. In my opinion, which I think is well supported with other examples in recent history, the devil's walk through Devon was the 1855 version of the Virgin Mary appearing in the bark of a tree or in bathtub stains. People see what they want to see and they think what they want to think, even when they're looking no farther than their own grilled-cheese sandwich skillet.
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© 2007 Skeptoid.com
References & Further Reading
Dash, Mike. Fortean Studies Volume 1. London: John Brown Publishing, 1994. 71-150.
Fort, Charles. The Book of the Damned. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1919. 334-356.
Mason, Paul. Investigating the Supernatural. Chicago: Heinemann Library, 2004. 22-23.
Nickell, Joe. Real-life X-Files, investigating the paranormal. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2001. 10-17.
Owen, Richard. "Footprints in the Snow." Illustrated London News. 31 Dec. 1855, 26: 214.
Wilson, Colin, Wilson, Damon. The Mammoth Encyclopedia of the Unsolved. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2000. 107-110.
Reference this article:
Dunning, Brian.
"The Devil Walked in Devon." Skeptoid Podcast. Skeptoid Media, Inc.,
7 Mar 2007. Web.
10 Mar 2010. <http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4031>
Discuss!
5 most recent comments | Show all 20 comments
Remember, you should always read with skepticism the comments of anyone too lame to put their real name & city.
Back 150 years ago, everything which was not easily explainable was deemed the work of god or the devil, thereby making those ignorant people in their big scary world feel more safe. Today we still have religion, but it has become a big business that propagates fear in the weak to ensure its survival. You would think that if the devil really existed, someone would have gotten a picture of him! LOL! If you take a hard look at all religion, it creates the story and images of good (god) and evil (satan), then offers you a way to "save your soul" by blindly believeing in something bigger than yourself, to make you feel better about the scary world. This is just too convenient for my sensibilities! Flash forward 150 years and with real science we are not guessing at the age of our planet, we do not fear thunder and lightning is an angry god (unless your on the golf course!), there is no rain god, wind god, etc. We have true understanding of the world around us, yet religion (the business) hangs in there with their contradicting stories and mythology. 1000 years from now people will laugh at todays religion the same way we laugh at the zany religious cultures of the Mayans and Aztecs.
Bryan J, Denver Colorado
August 07, 2009 8:33am
Interesting podcast - I'd never heard of this legend. Guess people in 19th century Devon needed some excitement to get through the long winter days - formed a pattern from next to nothing and the story grew. Though I'm fairly sure the devil should have better things to do than stroll through haystacks
Really small point, but Devon isn't in South-east England as stated in the podcast. It's in the far South-west (known, in fact, as 'the west country'). Sure it was just a slip of the tongue
Deborah, London, UK
October 20, 2009 4:54am
Not to burst your bubble, but just because someone is gothic doesn't mean they worship the devil. Wiccans and and pagans don't even believe in the Christian bible, and therefore Old Scratch is nil to them.
Hannah Bradley, dandridge, tennessee
February 07, 2010 3:58pm
do normal hoofed animals crawl through drain pipes. but then again, mabye they do...
classified, Uk
March 09, 2010 6:31pm
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I live in Devon and here the devil is quite a frequent sight.
He is usually seen uniformed wearing a cap with a yellow band around it and terrorises locals by attaching pieces of paper to the poor mortals' cars.
Dave, Paignton, Devon
June 30, 2009 11:02pm