#2 Who Made The Devil’s Footprints?
Hello,
I am really sorry for posting my second newsletter so late. I was figuring some things out and also getting to know Substack. I will be sending you guys newsletters regularly now with interesting stories.
Today’s story is a short piece about the notoriously known Devil’s Footprints. Hope you like the story!
This story dates back to February 8, 1855. In Devon, England, people woke up to a particularly snowy morning. Many didn’t dare to step out of their houses. However, it wasn’t the cold that made them stay inside. Instead, it was the unfamiliar, horror-inducing set of footprints that would stop right near their doors.
The cloven hooves shocked everyone because of their peculiarity. The Times reported that they were made by a two-legged entity, not a four-legged one. They were paired as such. The hooves trailed for around 60 to 160 km. The footprints didn’t care whether it was a house, river, haystack, or drainage pipe. They appeared on top of snow-covered roofs, walls, and drainage pipes as small as 4 inches in diameter. Clearly, no one animal could have made all these footprints.
The popular opinion cited it as Satan’s footprints. Local religious leaders also jumped on that bandwagon. Even though historians now treat it as little more than superstition, they still don’t know what caused it. At most, they can say that it was partially caused by mice, kangaroos, or a balloon; none can say with absolute certainty.
The May 26, 1855 issue of Bell’s Life in Sydney was published about the incident. It said:
“The superstitious go so far as to believe that they are the marks of Satan himself, and that great excitement has been produced among all classes may be judged from the fact that the subject has been descanted on from the pulpit.”