When the people of Devon woke on the morning of February 9, 1855, the countryside was covered in snow.
But something had crossed it during the night.
At first, the tracks looked almost ordinary.
Small hoofprints pressed neatly into the snow.
One after another.
Except there was something wrong with them.
They traveled in a single line, as though whatever made them walked on two legs rather than four.
They crossed roads.
Fields.
Gardens surrounded by locked gates.
Then people noticed the prints on top of walls.
On rooftops.
Across haystacks.
Some seemed to continue on the other side of obstacles that should have stopped almost any animal.
And the farther people followed them, the stranger the story became.
Similar tracks were being discovered in towns and villages across southern Devon.
Dawlish.
Teignmouth.
Exmouth.
Lympstone.
Topsham.
Miles apart.
Yet people kept finding the same strange marks in the snow. Contemporary newspapers reported that the mysterious tracks had caused considerable excitement, with some residents convinced that whatever had crossed Devon wasn’t an animal at all.
They believed something else had walked through their towns that night.
Something with hooves.
Something that walls and locked gates couldn’t stop.
And before long, the tracks had a name.
The Devil’s Footprints.
The Night the Devil’s Footprints Appeared
The strange story began during an unusually cold February in 1855.
On the night of February 8, snow fell across parts of Devon in southwestern England.
By morning, residents discovered the tracks.
Reports varied slightly from place to place, but many described small hoof-shaped impressions appearing one after another through the snow.
A report from Dawlish described marks roughly three and a half inches long and two and a half inches wide, shaped much like a donkey’s hoof. The steps were spaced at remarkably regular intervals of around a foot.
That alone wouldn’t have caused much excitement.
Devon had plenty of animals.
But this animal seemed to have gone places no ordinary animal should have been able to reach.
The prints appeared inside gardens enclosed by tall walls.
They crossed churchyards.
They traveled through fields.
And according to some reports, the trail continued across rooftops and other elevated surfaces.
Whatever had made them didn’t seem interested in taking the easy way around anything.
It simply kept going.
A Trail That Seemed to Go Everywhere
As morning passed, word spread.
People began comparing what they’d found.
The tracks weren’t confined to a single farm or village.
Reports came from communities around the Exe Estuary, including Exmouth, Topsham, Lympstone, Dawlish and Teignmouth. Later retellings extended the mystery even farther across Devon.
The story eventually grew into claims that the mysterious traveler had covered somewhere around 40 to 100 miles.
Perhaps the strangest part was the apparent consistency of the trail.
The marks were often described as appearing one directly in front of another.
Not four sets of tracks.
Not even two.
One.
As though a small hoofed creature had walked upright through Devon while everyone slept.
And whatever it was apparently wasn’t bothered by fences.
One contemporary account described the tracks passing through gardens with walls seven feet high despite the gates being locked. Another early report claimed walls as high as twelve feet had somehow been crossed without obvious disturbance.
You could explain tracks through a field.
You could explain them along a road.
But how did the same trail get inside a locked garden?
And how did it get out again?
The Footprints Crossed Walls and Rooftops
This is where the Devil’s Footprints become much harder to picture as an ordinary trail.
Imagine standing in your garden that morning.
Fresh snow covers the ground.
A neat row of hoofprints enters the garden.
You follow them.
They lead toward the wall.
And instead of turning…
they go straight to it.
Then similar marks appear beyond it.
Other accounts became stranger still.
Tracks were reportedly found on walls, roofs and haystacks, continuing along paths that seemed impossible for a normal wandering animal. Contemporary coverage described prints in enclosed courtyards and on the tops of houses.
Stories would later claim the tracks crossed the frozen Exe or appeared on both sides of the estuary, further feeding the idea that the mysterious visitor had traveled across an enormous stretch of countryside during a single winter night.
But perhaps the most unsettling stories involved places where the trail seemed to squeeze through spaces that should have been impossible.
Some later accounts claimed tracks appeared to lead toward narrow drains or openings before continuing beyond them.
It was almost as if the thing making them could go wherever it pleased.
Devon Begins to Panic
By then, people weren’t merely curious.
Some were frightened.
Newspapers reported the strange tracks within days.
On February 16, The Times described the “considerable sensation” caused in communities including Topsham, Lympstone, Exmouth, Teignmouth and Dawlish. The paper noted that some people had gone so far as to believe the tracks belonged to Satan himself.
Another report from Exmouth described groups of residents gathering to examine the prints and arguing over what could have made them.
People had theories.
But the frightening one was obvious.
The Devil had come to Devon.
It sounds almost quaint nearly two centuries later.
It probably didn’t feel quaint if you were standing in a snow-covered village staring at hoofprints that appeared to cross your locked garden during the night.
Especially when someone from the next village told you…
they had them too.
Did Anyone Follow the Devil’s Footprints?
People did try.
Reports describe residents tracing the tracks for considerable distances, hoping eventually to discover where they began or what had made them.
But the trail didn’t provide an easy answer.
It crossed one property.
Then another.
It disappeared into the distance.
And more reports kept coming.
Some residents apparently became reluctant to venture outside after dark while the mystery continued. One contemporary report noted that frightened people in the affected communities were afraid to leave their homes at night.
You can understand why.
Because finding tracks in the morning is one thing.
Following them is another.
At some point, someone must have wondered:
What happens if I catch up with whatever made them?
What Made the Devil’s Footprints?
People offered explanations almost immediately.
A donkey seemed possible because of the shape of the tracks.
But a donkey had four legs.
And whatever crossed Devon seemed to have walked in a single line—over walls, through enclosed gardens, and even across rooftops.
Other animals were suggested.
Then an even stranger rumor began circulating.
A kangaroo had escaped from a private menagerie.
Reverend G. M. Musgrave later admitted that he had helped spread the kangaroo story, hoping it might calm people who were becoming frightened by rumors of a supernatural visitor.
It apparently didn’t work.
Because every explanation seemed to run into the same problem.
The footprints went places they shouldn’t have been able to go.
Over walls.
Across rooftops.
Into locked gardens.
Through churchyards and between graves.
Whatever had made them seemed able to move through Devon without anything standing in its way.
And as stories of the mysterious tracks spread from village to village, one explanation became impossible to ignore.
Maybe the hoofprints belonged to exactly what frightened residents believed they did.
Maybe the Devil really had walked through Devon that night.
Why Did People Think It Was the Devil?
Hooves have been associated with the Devil in European folklore for centuries.
The image would have been immediately recognizable in 1855.
Horns.
Tail.
Cloven feet.
So when people found unexplained hoof-shaped prints crossing their communities, the connection wasn’t difficult to make.
One newspaper report even referred to the phenomenon as the “Satanic Hoof.”
And the impossible path made the idea even harder to shake.
An animal had to obey fences.
The Devil didn’t.
An animal couldn’t enter a locked courtyard without leaving some clue.
The Devil could.
An animal might turn when it reached a wall.
Whatever crossed Devon that night…
apparently didn’t.
The Devil’s Footprints Enter the Churchyard
One detail seems almost designed for a campfire story.
The tracks were reportedly seen in churchyards.
The earliest Dawlish account said the mysterious prints appeared throughout a churchyard and even between the graves. Later reporting from Topsham also placed the trail in the churchyard there.
Picture that morning.
Snow covering the gravestones.
Everything quiet.
Then a single line of hoofprints winding between the graves.
No person beside them.
No obvious animal.
Just the tracks.
And if you already believed the Devil had walked through town during the night…
finding his footprints in the cemetery probably wasn’t going to change your mind.
Were All the Devil’s Footprints the Same?
Descriptions weren’t identical.
Some reports described prints resembling a donkey’s hoof.
Others mentioned something closer to a cloven hoof.
Measurements also varied from location to location.
Yet despite the differences, people across Devon were seeing something eerily similar.
Small hoof-like prints.
Evenly spaced.
Traveling in a single narrow line.
And there was one explanation that refused to go away.
Maybe the tracks belonged to exactly what frightened people thought they did.
Then the Devil’s Footprints Stopped
The panic eventually faded.
The snow melted.
The mysterious tracks disappeared.
Whatever had crossed Devon was gone.
No creature was captured.
No strange animal was discovered hiding in a barn.
No one produced a definitive answer that brought the story to a neat conclusion.
The footprints simply became part of local folklore.
And that may be why the story survived.
If someone had found an escaped animal the next afternoon, the Devil’s Footprints might have become little more than an amusing piece of Victorian history.
Instead, people were left with a winter morning in 1855 when hoof-shaped tracks appeared across an enormous area.
And nobody could agree on what had made them.
Could the Devil’s Footprints Happen Again?
Strange hoof-like tracks haven’t remained entirely confined to 1855.
Over the years, other mysterious trails in snow have occasionally been compared with the Devon footprints.
None has recreated the legend on quite the same scale.
But perhaps that’s because the Devil’s Footprints were never frightening simply because of their shape.
It was their path.
Through towns.
Across enclosed gardens.
Over walls.
Past houses.
Between graves.
The legend doesn’t ask you to imagine seeing the Devil.
It asks you to imagine waking up and realizing that sometime during the night…
something had already passed your house.
Similar Legends
The Devil’s Tramping Ground
Deep in the woods of North Carolina lies a mysterious barren circle where, according to legend, the Devil walks at night.
People say nothing will grow inside the circle because the Devil spends his nights pacing around it.
Objects left inside are sometimes said to be moved or thrown away before morning.
And just like the footprints that appeared across Devon, the legend leaves behind an unsettling possibility:
Maybe the Devil really does walk among us after dark.
The Devil’s Tree
In New Jersey stands a twisted old tree surrounded by stories of death, curses, and strange encounters.
Known simply as the Devil’s Tree, legend warns that anyone foolish enough to damage it may suffer terrible consequences.
Some visitors have even reported seeing a mysterious black truck nearby—one that supposedly disappears as quickly as it appears.
Whatever you believe, generations of stories have turned an ordinary tree into a place many people would rather not visit alone.
The Devil’s Toybox
Some places aren’t haunted by a ghost.
They’re simply places you aren’t supposed to enter.
The legend of the Devil’s Toybox tells of a strange structure where anyone who ventures inside may experience terrifying sounds, disorientation, and other unexplained phenomena.
And according to some versions of the story, staying inside too long can have consequences far worse than simply becoming lost.
The Jersey Devil
For centuries, something strange has supposedly roamed the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.
The Jersey Devil is often described as a bizarre winged creature with a horse-like head, long legs, and hooves.
Over the years, strange tracks discovered in snow have sometimes been connected to the creature.
Which raises an interesting question:
If hoofprints appear where no ordinary animal should be able to go, how certain are you that you want to find what made them?
Spring-Heeled Jack
Decades before the Devil’s Footprints appeared in Devon, another seemingly impossible figure was terrifying people in England.
Known as Spring-Heeled Jack, the mysterious attacker was said to make enormous leaps, clearing walls and fences that should have stopped any ordinary person.
Witnesses described frightening encounters before watching him escape with almost supernatural speed.
And like whatever crossed Devon in 1855…
walls apparently weren’t much of an obstacle.
Final Thoughts
Imagine waking up in Devon on February 9, 1855.
Someone knocks on your door.
There are strange hoofprints outside.
You follow them across the garden.
They reach the wall.
Then somehow…
they continue on the other side.
Your neighbor has seen them too.
So has someone down the road.
Then word arrives from another town.
And another.
By evening, people are whispering that the Devil walked through Devon while everyone slept.
You lock the door that night.
You probably check it twice.
But somewhere in the back of your mind is the thing that makes the story truly frightening.
Whatever made those footprints didn’t seem to care about locked doors, walls, or fences.
And if it came once…
who’s to say it couldn’t come back?
Frequently Asked Questions About the Devil’s Footprints
What Were the Devil’s Footprints?
The Devil’s Footprints were mysterious hoof-like tracks reported across parts of Devon, England, after snowfall in February 1855. They became famous because the marks appeared in a narrow line and were reportedly found in unusual places, including enclosed gardens, walls and rooftops.
When Did the Devil’s Footprints Appear?
The best-known incident occurred during the night of February 8–9, 1855, following snowfall across southern Devon.
How Far Did the Devil’s Footprints Go?
Later accounts commonly describe trails extending roughly 40 to 100 miles, although contemporary reports came from numerous separate communities rather than documenting one continuously measured trail from beginning to end.
What Made the Devil’s Footprints?
No one knows. Animals, unusual weather conditions, and even an escaped kangaroo were suggested at the time. But the explanation that became legend was far more frightening:
The Devil himself had walked through Devon.
Were the Devil’s Footprints Really Found on Rooftops?
Contemporary newspaper reports did describe the mysterious tracks appearing on the tops of houses and narrow walls, as well as in enclosed gardens and courtyards.
About the Author
Karen Cody is the creator of Urban Legends, Mystery, and Myth, a blog exploring eerie folklore, strange history, and the mysteries behind the world’s most chilling stories. From haunted places and supernatural creatures to ghost stories, horror films, and modern myths, she examines the legends—both ancient and modern—that continue to fascinate and frighten us.
© 2026 Karen Cody. All rights reserved.