The Devil's Footprints (Exe estuary)

OVERVIEW

Topsham, Lympstone, Exmouth, Dawlish and Teignmouth on the Exe estuary in south Devon. After heavy snow on the night of 8–9 February 1855 residents found trails of hoof-like marks about four inches long, eight inches apart, in a single line as if made by a two-legged walker, running through gardens and across rooftops, over walls and haystacks, up to doors and through drainpipes, and apparently crossing the two-mile estuary. Estimates of the total length ran from forty to a hundred miles.

HISTORY

The Times reported it on 16 February and the Illustrated London News ran letters through March, one from the Reverend G. M. Musgrave of Withycombe Raleigh, who admitted inventing a story about escaped kangaroos to calm his parishioners. Explanations offered since include a hopping rodent, badgers, an escaped balloon trailing a rope, and many people describing many different tracks; Mike Dash's 1994 paper collects every surviving source.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

Villagers armed themselves and would not go out after dark, convinced the Devil had walked; that fear is documented. What made the marks is not. It is here as the archetype of an unexplained-things-in-the-record case.

VISITING

Public towns on the Exe; nothing remains but the story. Topsham has a small museum.