The Devil’s Footprints

Today’s mystery is one of my favourites, sure, like the majority of unexplained events, there are theories, some more likely than others, whichever theory you believe in, there is no denying that this one is very strange and creepy.

We’re going to travel south, to the county of Devon in England, but we need to travel a wee bit further, back to one of the coldest winters in UK history, going back to 1855.

In the early hours of the 9th February, 1855, a small group of locals gathered in the centre of town, at first glance, this would seem nothing more than a gathering of people, and yet although the sound of their voices could certainly be heard, it would come to pass that they were not merely having a town meeting, after all, temperatures were below freezing and it was the early hours of the morning.

The attention of the townsfolk was concentrated on a particular thing, it would appear questions were being asked and words being shouted, words like “Devil”.

See, on the ground, imprinted in the snow were footprints, well, not exactly footprints, they were animal tracks, hoof prints to be exact.

So what? Nothing new there? It had been snowing heavily over the last day or so and of course any animal would leave prints, and in 1855 Devon, there were certainly hooved animals, maybe one had gotten loose and ran…