Footprints in the snow

My puppy Jethro is currently convalescing from knee surgery, following an ACL injury caused by an over-enthusiastic wrestling match between him and his best friend Rosie.  The surgery went well, and a week and a half later he's back to his usual ebullient self, but will be on serious exercise restriction for another month and a half.

This means that instead of letting all three dogs out into our big, fenced back yard, I have to take Jethro out on leash several times a day, starting when I get up, usually around 5:30 AM.  And when I brought him out a couple of mornings ago, I saw in the glow of the front porch light that there was a fresh coat of snow on the ground -- further evidence that the First Day of Spring doesn't mean that much here in upstate New York.

I was still dressed in my robe and slippers, and when Jethro was done outside we retreated gratefully back into the warmth of my office.  The morning dawned bright and clear, and the temperature quickly climbed into the mid-forties.  When I looked out of the window later in the day I could still see the line of footprints I made while taking Jethro out earlier, but the effects of the Sun had widened them from the clear indentations of a human wearing rubber-soled slippers into diffuse, open blobs -- and it immediately put me in mind of one of the most peculiar legends of Merrie Old England.  Perhaps you've not heard of it; if not, you may find it an interesting tale.

Early in the morning on February 8, 1855 (so the story goes), the people of five small towns in south Devon -- Topsham, Lympstone, Exmouth, Teignmouth, and Dawlish -- woke to find a line of footprints in the snow.  The London Times of February 16 reported on the story in detail:

It appears that on Thursday night last there was a very heavy fall of snow in the neighborhood of Exeter and the south of Devon.  On the following morning, the inhabitants of the above towns were surprised at discovering the tracks of some strange and mysterious animal, endowed with the power of ubiquity, as the foot-prints were to be seen in all kinds of inaccessible places -- on the tops of houses and narrow walls, in gardens and courtyards enclosed by high walls and palings, as well as in open fields.  There was hardly a garden in Lympstone where the footprints were not observed.

The track appeared more like that of a biped than a quadruped, and the steps were generally eight inches in advance of each other.  The impressions of the feet closely resembled that of a donkey's shoe, and measured from an inch and a half to (in some instances) two and a half inches across.  Here and there it appeared as if cloven, but in the generality of the steps the shoe was continuous, and, from the snow in the center remaining entire, merely showing the outer crest of the foot, it must have been convex.

The creature seems to have approached the doors of several houses and then to have retreated, but no one has been able to discover the standing or resting point of this mysterious visitor.  On Sunday last the Rev. Mr. Musgrave alluded to the subject in his sermon, and suggested the possibility of the footprints being those of a kangaroo; but this could scarcely have been the case, as they were found on both sides of the estuary of the Exe.

At present it remains a mystery, and many superstitious people in the above towns are actually afraid to go outside their doors at night.

What is oddest -- and has been reported in multiple sources from the time -- is that the perpetrator, whatever or whomever it was, seemed unperturbed by obstacles.  The line of footprints walked right up to the bank of a river, and resumed on the other side as if it had walked straight through the running water.  Walls didn't slow it down, either; witnesses say that the footprints indicated it had simply stepped over the wall, as the imprint in the snow showed no change in depth from one side to the other (as it would have if the perpetrator had climbed up one side and then jumped down).  The footprints went in more or less a straight line, with only minor deviations, apparently to glimpse into the windows of houses it passed (*shudder*).  The most conservative reports claim the line of prints extended for sixty kilometers, far too much for one person (or creature) to cover in a single night.

The snow, as it melted, accentuated the strangeness of the prints, just as it did with the slipper-prints in my front yard.  The resemblance to a cloven hoof, with its suggestion of the devil, became more pronounced, and the fear grew to near hysteria.  Fortunately (or unfortunately, for those of us who like to know the solutions to mysteries) the events were never repeated, and never satisfactorily explained.

A sketch of the footprints, as drawn by several people who saw them first-hand

The Devonshire footprints were credited by some as a visitation not by Satan, but by one of his uniquely English cousins -- Spring-heeled Jack.  The first reported sighting of Spring-heeled Jack was in London in 1837 by a businessman walking home from work. The gentleman described being terrified by the sudden appearance of a dark figure which had "jumped the high railings of Barnes Cemetery with ease," landing right in his path.  The businessman wasn't attacked, and was able to keep his wits sufficiently about him to describe a "muscular man, with a wild, grinning expression, long, pointed nose and ears, and protruding, glowing eyes."

Sort of like the love child of Salvador Dali and Mr. Spock, is how I think of him.

Others were attacked, and some were not so lucky as our businessman.  A girl named Mary Stevens was attacked in Battersea, and had her clothing torn and was scratched and clawed, but survived because neighbors came to help when they heard her screams.  The following day Jack jumped in front of a coach, causing it to swerve and crash.  The coachman was severely injured, and several witnesses saw Jack escape by leaping over a nine-foot-high wall, all the while howling with insane laughter.

Several more encounters occurred during the following year, including two in which the victims were blinded temporarily by "blue-white fire" spat from Jack's mouth.

Although publicity grew, and Spring-heeled Jack became a character of folk myth, song, and the punch line to many a joke, sightings became less frequent.  Following the footprints in the snow-covered Devonshire countryside in 1855, there was a flurry of renewed interest (*rimshot*), but the last claimed sighting of Spring-heeled Jack was in Lincoln in 1877, and after that he seems to have gone the way of the dodo.

As intriguing as both stories are, all of the evidence points to pranksters (and, in the case of Mary Stevens, an unsuccessful rapist).  With the Devonshire footprints, the length of the track line is almost certainly an exaggeration, or at best a conflation of tracks from different sources -- a few of them by a hoaxer to get things going, followed by people blaming every human or animal track they see in the snow afterward on the mysterious walker.  As far as Spring-heeled Jack goes, I'm not inclined to believe in Jack's phenomenal jumping ability, except in cases where Jack jumped down off a wall -- that requires no particular skill except the agility to get up there in the first place, and after that gravity takes care of the rest.  It seems to me that a combination of nighttime, fear, a wild costume, and the witnesses' being primed by already knowing the story creates a synergy that makes their accuracy seriously in question.

The fact remains, however, that both of them are very peculiar stories. I remember reading about the Devonshire footprints when I was a kid (I didn't find out about Spring-heeled Jack until later), and the idea of some mysterious non-human creature pacing its way across the snowy English countryside, silently crossing fields and farms and streets and rivers, peering into the windows of homes at the sleeping inhabitants, was enough to give me what the Scots call the "cauld grue."  Still does, in fact.  Enough that I was glad when the fitful March sunshine finally eradicated my slipper-prints in the front yard -- which goes to show that even a diehard rationalist can sometimes fall prey to an irrational case of the creeps.

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Lending a hand

After seven years in the business of writing six times a week about bizarre beliefs, it's a little astonishing that I can still run across ones that I've never heard of before.

It is less surprising, perhaps, that the source of this claim was the inimitable Nick Redfern, whose inquiries into ghosts, the paranormal, and cryptozoology has made him something of a frequent flier here at Skeptophilia.  This time, though, he came up with something pretty unique:

That a road in Dartmoor, Devonshire, England is haunted by a pair of gigantic hairy hands.

According to the legend, the road between the villages of Postbridge and Two Bridges is fraught with peril.  People driving along it (or, in an earlier day, riding a horse) were putting themselves at risk of being accosted by a pair of disembodied hands that appear out of nowhere, grab the steering wheel (or reins), and cause the car (or horse) to veer off the road.  The tale is interesting enough that Redfern has actually written about it twice, first back in 2011, and most recently last week.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

I will leave you to check out Redfern's accounts of the Hairy Hands causing accidents, some of which go back to 1910, and will just quote one -- an encounter that allegedly happened in 2008:

Michael Anthony worked, at the time, for a supplier of photo-copying machines in Britain, and spent a lot of time traveling the length and breadth of the country meeting clients and promoting – and hopefully selling and/or leasing – his company’s products.  Late on the night of January 16, 2008, Anthony was driving along the B3212 road when he had a terrifying encounter with the unknown... 

According to Anthony, it was around 11.00 p.m., and he had been visiting a customer in Postbridge.  The evening had gone very well, a deal had been struck, contracts had been signed and exchanged, and a pleased and satisfied Anthony was now homeward bound to the city of Bristol... 

Anthony had barely left Postbridge, when his skin began to feel distinctly cold and clammy, and a sense of dread and fear completely enveloped him...  He explained further that perhaps two minutes after the atmosphere in his car became oppressive, fear-filled, and even somewhat malevolent, he felt his hands begin to “go numb.”  He added: “I actually thought I was having a stroke.”  Fortunately, it was no stroke.  In some ways, however, it was far worse. 

Anthony could only look on in both complete horror and disbelief as, just as had been the case so many decades earlier, a very large pair of hair-covered hands, or “paws,” as he intriguingly described them, encased his own hands, and then suddenly attempted to forcibly steer the car towards the edge of the road and skidded onto the cold, moonlit moors.  To his credit, Anthony struggled valiantly with the wheel and, on three occasions, fought off the actions of the spectral, hairy intruder in his midst. 

Interestingly, after the third attempt, said Anthony, the hands simply vanished into thin air, amid a brief flash of light.  The shaken driver floored the accelerator and did not stop until he reached one of the service stations on the M5 motorway.

So there you have it.  I can say with some certainty that, skeptic though I am, if this happened to me, I'd scream like a little girl and wet my pants.  Because although I'm a skeptic about the paranormal, I'm also a great big coward.

Be that as it may, I'm a little disappointed that I only found out about this now, because I was in England two summers ago and took a train right through the middle of Dartmoor.  Had I known about the Hairy Hands legend, I would have definitely made a detour to Postbridge, and dared the Hands to do their worst, even knowing that if the whole thing turned out to be true, I'd have certainly regretted that decision.

But still.  So near and yet so far.

Anyhow, there is is -- a paranormal legend that I'd never run across.  You should definitely check out Redfern's accounts, which are highly entertaining reading.  I wasn't able to find out where the Hands supposedly came from -- whether they're supposedly from a ghost, a werewolf (the hair, right?), or something else.  Whoever they belong to, however, might want to consider driving lessons.  Better safe than sorry.

Footprints in the snow

The great blizzard of December 2010 has come and gone, but my upstate New York village received a mere dusting as compared to the 18 to 24 inches they got in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Maine.  In fact, this morning the sun came out for a bit, and yesterday's snow is beginning to melt, although at this time of year I figure that the comparative warmth is only a tease.

Watching the effect that the sun had on footprints I made yesterday while hauling firewood, as they widened from the clear indentations of a human wearing ridge-soled Timberland boots into diffuse, open blobs, put me in mind of one of the most peculiar legends of Merrie Old England.  Perhaps you've not heard of it; if not, you may find it an interesting tale for a cold, snowy winter day.

Early in the morning on February 8, 1855 (so the story goes), the people of five small towns in south Devon -- Topsham, Lympstone, Exmouth, Teignmouth, and Dawlish -- woke to find a line of footprints in the snow.  The London Times of February 16 reported on the story in detail:

"It appears that on Thursday night last there was a very heavy fall of snow in the neighborhood of Exeter and the south of Devon.  On the following morning, the inhabitants of the above towns were surprised at discovering the tracks of some strange and mysterious animal, endowed with the power of ubiquity, as the foot-prints were to be seen in all kinds of inaccessible places - on the tops of houses and narrow walls, in gardens and courtyards enclosed by high walls and palings, as well as in open fields.  There was hardly a garden in Lympstone where the footprints were not observed.

"The track appeared more like that of a biped than a quadruped, and the steps were generally eight inches in advance of each other.  The impressions of the feet closely resembled that of a donkey's shoe, and measured from an inch and a half to (in some instances) two and a half inches across.  Here and there it appeared as if cloven, but in the generality of the steps the shoe was continuous, and, from the snow in the center remaining entire, merely showing the outer crest of the foot, it must have been convex.

"The creature seems to have approached the doors of several houses and then to have retreated, but no one has been able to discover the standing or resting point of this mysterious visitor.  On Sunday last the Rev. Mr. Musgrave alluded to the subject in his sermon, and suggested the possibility of the footprints being those of a kangaroo; but this could scarcely have been the case, as they were found on both sides of the estuary of the Exe.

"At present it remains a mystery, and many superstitious people in the above towns are actually afraid to go outside their doors at night."

The snow, as it melted, accentuated the strangeness of the prints, just as it did with the bootprints in my front yard.  The resemblance to a cloven hoof, with its suggestion of the devil, became more pronounced, and the fear grew to near hysteria.  Fortunately (or unfortunately, for those of us who like to know the solutions to mysteries) the events were never repeated, and never satisfactorily explained.

The Devon footprints were credited by some as a visitation not by Satan, but by one of his uniquely English cousins -- Spring-heeled Jack.  Spring-heeled Jack was first sighted in London in 1837 by a businessman walking home from work.  The gentleman described being terrified by the sudden appearance of a dark figure which had "jumped the high railings of Barnes Cemetery with ease," landing right in his path.  The businessman wasn't attacked, and was able to keep his wits sufficiently about him to describe a "muscular man, with a wild, grinning expression, long, pointed nose and ears, and protruding, glowing eyes."  Sort of like the love child of Salvador Dali and Mr. Spock, is the way I think of him.

Others were attacked, and some were not so lucky as our businessman.  A girl named Mary Stevens was attacked in Battersea, and had her clothing torn and was scratched and clawed, but survived because neighbors came to help when they heard her screams.  The following day Jack jumped in front of a coach, causing it to swerve and crash.  The coachman was severely injured, and several witnesses saw Jack escape by leaping over a nine-foot-high wall, all the while howling with insane laughter.

Several more encounters occurred during the following year, including two in which the victims were blinded temporarily by "blue-white fire" spat from Jack's mouth.

Although publicity grew, and Spring-heeled Jack became a character of folk myth, song, and the punch line to many a joke, sightings grew less frequent.  Following the footprints in the snow-covered Devonshire countryside in 1855, there was a flurry of renewed interest (rimshot), but the last claimed sighting of Spring-heeled Jack was in Lincoln in 1877, and after that he seems to have gone the way of the dodo.

As intriguing as this story is, all of the evidence points to pranksters (and, in the case of Mary Stevens, an unsuccessful rapist).  I'm not inclined to believe in Jack's phenomenal jumping ability, except in cases where Jack jumped down off a wall -- that requires no particular skill except the agility to get up there in the first place, and after that gravity takes care of the rest.  It seems to me that nighttime, fear, a wild costume, and the witnesses' being primed by already knowing the story create a synergy that makes their accuracy seriously in question.

The fact remains, however, that it's a very peculiar story.  I remember reading about the Devon footprints when I was a kid (I didn't find out about Spring-heeled Jack until later), and the idea of some mysterious non-human creature pacing its way across the English countryside, silently crossing fields and farms and streets, peering in the windows at the sleeping inhabitants, was enough to give me the cauld grue.  Still does, in fact.  Enough that I hope that the fitful December sun has eradicated my bootprints in the front yard completely -- which goes to show that even a diehard rationalist can sometimes fall prey to an irrational case of the creeps.