Fragments | The Devil’s Footprints: The Tracks That Crossed Rooftops — Ep. 01

A New Format And A Promise

Before we get into today's story, I just want to say thank you. If you listen to the trailer over the weekend, then you already know this is something new. This is the very first episode of State of the Unknown Fragments. Every other Tuesday, you'll still get the full documentary episodes you've come to expect. But on the weeks in between, we'll meet here instead. Just me, a microphone, and an interesting story that I couldn't stop thinking about. Some of these are forgotten newspaper accounts, some are old legends, some are bits of folklore that have survived for generations. They're not full documentaries, they're simply stories that deserve another telling. So let's tell one.

The Night The Tracks Appeared

Have you ever followed a set of tracks in the snow and realized they were going somewhere they shouldn't have been able to go? That happened across southern Devon in southwest England in February of 1855. It had been a bitter winter. Snow fell overnight around the villages near the X estuary. That's where the River X opens into the English Channel. When people woke up the next morning, everything was covered. Roads, fields, the small walled gardens behind people's homes, what most Americans would call their backyards, rooftops, stone walls, all of it. And in that fresh snow, people started finding footprints. They weren't tiny little marks. Contemporary reports described hoof-like prints about an inch and a half to two and a half inches across. Some people compared them to small horseshoes. Other people thought they looked like the hoof of a donkey, only smaller. Most of the trails were described as one narrow line, with each print falling almost directly behind the last. Maybe someone followed that line a little farther than they meant to. One print led to another, and then another, each one drawing their attention toward whatever came next. A horse or donkey wouldn't normally leave a trail like that. Neither would most animals people in Devon were used to seeing. Still, the obvious answer was that some animal had wandered through the snow. But the tracks didn't stay in one field or one garden. They kept turning up inside enclosed gardens, behind walls, and in places that didn't seem to have any obvious way in. The prints were also reported along the tops of narrow walls. Fresh snow rested on the top of stone. Pressed into it, one after another, were small, hoof-like marks. One account said a trail seemed to have cleared a wall fourteen feet high. There wasn't any simple path showing how an ordinary animal had managed that. The tracks just kept appearing in places where nobody expected to find them. And people said they were on rooftops, too. That's the image I couldn't stop thinking about. Small hoof-like prints in the snow below, and the same kind of marks being reported on rooftops above. No clear trail showed how anything had gotten up there. The prints were simply found in a place where hoof prints made no sense. One strange trail through a field is one thing. Finding the same kind of marks on rooftops, along walls, and inside enclosed backyards is, well, something else entirely. At that point, people weren't only asking what had made them. They were asking how it had gotten there. Reports began coming from towns and villages scattered around the X estuary, places like Exmouth, Limpson, Topsham, Dawlish, and Tingmouth. These weren't different neighborhoods in the same town. They were separate communities spread across the countryside, some of them miles apart, and the same strange details kept appearing in the reports. Narrow trails, hoof-like marks, enclosed gardens, walls, and rooftops. It no longer felt like a few unrelated discoveries. People across the countryside were beginning to believe the same strange trail connected all of them. Reports had also come from communities on both sides of the Xestuary, which raised an even stranger question. Had whatever made the tracks cross the water too? The estuary separated those villages, yet people woke on both sides of it, describing the same hoof-like marks in the snow. That's another image that stayed with me. Quiet villages on either side of the water, and people waking up to the same strange question. They began picturing one thing moving through Devon during the night, crossing fields and roads, entering enclosed backyards, reaching rooftops and high walls, and somehow making its way across the estuary. As the report spread, the footprints stopped being something people had simply found outside their own homes. Neighbors compared what they'd seen. Newspapers carried the accounts beyond the villages where the marks had appeared. People began wondering not only what had left them, but whether whatever had made them was still out

Fear Spreads And A Name Sticks

there. And once they began seeing the reports as one continuous trail, it became difficult to ignore the shape of the prints. People began calling them the devil's footprints. In 1855, that wasn't simply a colorful name for something strange. Many people believed that the devil could act in the physical world. And now there were hoof-like marks outside their homes, on their walls, and on the rooftops. Fear spread with the reports. Newspapers described considerable excitement across the area. Clergymen heard the rumors, and the footprints reportedly became the subject of at least one sermon. In some villages, people were afraid to leave their homes after dark. The tracks had appeared while everyone was asleep. Nobody knew what had made them, where it had gone, or whether it would return the following night. Honestly, I can understand why people were afraid. If I believed those reports were accurate, I'm not sure what I would have thought either. When darkness came back over Devon, people weren't looking at their villages the same way. The roads were still there, the enclosed gardens were still behind their homes, snow still rested on the walls and rooftops, and somewhere beyond the light from their windows was the countryside where those tracks had appeared. If you believed the devil himself had walked through your village the night before, going outside was no longer an ordinary thing. Scratch that. Going outside in the dark was no longer an option for many.

Kangaroos Badgers And Other Explanations

A local clergyman named Reverend George Musgrave saw how frightened people had become and tried to give them something else to believe. Kangaroos. There was talk that a pair had escaped from a private collection nearby. And this may be my favorite detail in the whole story. A kangaroo loose in Devon would have been strange enough, but it was still an animal. It could jump, it could leave tracks. It belonged to the natural world. And most importantly, it wasn't the devil. Musgrave himself didn't seem especially convinced. He simply understood that his parishioners needed an explanation that belonged to that natural world. Whether they accepted it was another matter. No one seems to have established that either kangaroo had actually gotten loose. And the interest didn't disappear when the first fear began to settle. More than a month after the footprints appeared, newspapers were still printing letters from people trying to explain them. Some readers suggested badgers. Other theories followed, but each seemed to leave part of the story untouched. An animal might explain the narrow trail through a field, but what about the reports from rooftops, high walls, enclosed gardens, and communities on both sides of the estuary? People compared drawings and argued over what kind of animal could have left the marks, but no answer settled the matter. And by then, the one thing people could no longer do was go back outside and look at the footprints.

No Photos Just A Lasting Legend

Today, something like this would be photographed from every angle. There'd be pictures, videos, posts from every town, and people online comparing one set of tracks to another before breakfast. But this was 1855. Photography existed, but people didn't have cameras sitting in their pockets, or even in most homes. The images that reached the newspapers were drawings based on what people said they'd seen. And the snow wasn't going to wait. It softened. The sharp edges of the marks began to blur, and the only physical evidence anyone had seen slowly disappeared with it. But the story didn't disappear with the snow. It moved from newspapers into books, from books into folklore. And now it keeps turning up in documentaries, podcasts, videos, and online conversations where people are still looking at those old drawings and asking the same question the people of Devon asked that morning. What could have left hoof prints there? That may be the most remarkable part of it all. There are no photographs, no tracks preserved somewhere behind glass, nothing left anyone can go back to and examine. Just a few drawings, a collection of reports, and a story from one snowy morning in 1855 that somehow made it all the way to us. And now that you know it, you might tell someone too.

Closing Thoughts And Listener Request

Well, that's our very first fragment. I really hope you enjoyed it. I'd genuinely love to hear what you think about this new format, so if you have a minute, leave a comment on Spotify, Facebook, or Instagram and let me know. You can find me there at State of the Unknown Podcast. I'll be back next Tuesday with another full episode of State of the Unknown. And in two weeks, we'll sit down together for another fragment. Until next time, thanks for letting me tell you a story.