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 through town, evidence would soon come to light, that whatever caused these tracks, was no animal.

At first inspection, the tracks ran from one end of the village right across to the other. The creepy thing is, the footprints did not stop, at all, even when they came upon an obstruction.

The footprints were followed to a nearby barn and appeared to simply stop at the side wall, the townsfolk would only become more animated when one of the locals procured a large ladder to climb up onto the roof of the barn, only to discover to his horror, that the footprints continued, unimpeded, across the roof, as if it leapt onto the roof or simply stepped up there, only to continue down the other side, like whatever it was, trudging cross country this cold winter’s night had a purpose, and nothing was stopping it.

The prints would continue in this fashion in a straight line, if it encountered a dwelling or a cart, it…