Loremen Podcast - S4 Ep36: Loremen S4 Ep36 - The Devil's Hoofprints

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

Did the Devil themself come to town on a cold February night in Devon and just sort of wander around? That's just one of the hypotheses put forward to explain the uncanny appearance of prints in the snow all across the county. Was it Old Nick? Or was it a gang of kangaroos? An acrobatic rodent? Or, like so many things in life, was it simply badgers?   Who knows? YOU DECIDE. We certainly don't. Loreboys nether say die! Check the sweet, sweet merch here... https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631 Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): patreon.com/loremenpod ko-fi.com/loremen @loremenpod www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And I'm James Shakeshaft. And James, you like unexplained phenomena, don't you? Yeah, big time. How do you feel about explained phenomena? Just phenomena, really. That's just phenomena. Yeah. Well, big time. How do you feel about explained phenomena? Just phenomena, really. That's just phenomena.

Yeah. Well, great news. Today's episode is all about an unexplained phenomenon. Whoa. Can we get to the bottom of it? We never will. And that's not just you and me, podcasters with limited research time. That's everyone, isn't there?

Well, what is it? Why? Why, James? It's the South Devon tale of the devil's hoofprints. Hoofprints? Hoofprints. Hoofprints. Hello, James.

Hello, Alistair. I've got a little story for you, if you have a moment. Oh, go on. Bend my ear. I will. And then after that,. I've got a little story for you, if you have a moment. Oh, go on. Bend my ear. I will. And then after that, can I tell you a story? Yes. Probably in the other ear, because that one will be out of action for a little bit. Righto. If that one's a little sore, yeah. Swivel around, swivel around, swivel around. Okay, here we go. This is the story of the Devil's Hoofmarks. I'm going to say say that again because hoof marks really goes on the mic. Of the devil's hoof marks.

Again, of the devil's hoof marks. Hoof marks? I don't know if I pronounce it hoof marks or hoof marks. How do you pronounce the things in your mouth you use for biting? Yeah, tooth. Tooth. I say tooth. Teeth, actually. Teeth is the plural. It's multiple, yes. Yeah, but I would say tooth, not tough. tooth tooth i say tooth teeth actually teeth is the plural it's

multiple yes yeah but i would say tooth not tough you wouldn't say toothpaste i wouldn't say toothpaste but i but i would if i was saying the devil's toothpaste the devil's the devil the devil's toothpaste what about the devil's hoof paste oh what's that for does that attach the hoof horseshoes or Does it buff them up? Oh, yeah, just to polish them. Yeah. Get your cloven hooves as shiny as possible. Yeah, if you're the devil,

and that is the way that someone's going to notice it's you whilst you're playing cards, you want it to be shiny. Glint, glint. Mm. That's my pitch for the advert for The Devil's Hoof Paste. It sounds great, yeah. The Devil's Hoof Paste.

Well, my main source for the story of The Devil's Hoof Paste. It sounds great, yeah. The Devil's Hoof Paste. Well, my main source for the story of the Devil's Hoof Marks is Oddities, a book of unexplained facts by Robert T. Gould. Bobby T. Gould? Bobby T. Gould. Was he from way down in Louisiana, down in New Orleans? He was from way down in 1944 when he revised the second edition of Oddities, a book of unexplained facts. Could he play the guitar just like ringing the bell?

Which, as I've tried, is a terrible way of playing the guitar. This rock and roll is awful. Let me, James, let me take you to South Devon. Oh, yeah? Yeah, I'm talking Topsham. I bet you are. I'm talking Limpston. Oh.

I'm talking Exmouth. I'm talking Tinmouth. I'm talking Luscombe. Because you're talking about Limpstones and what have you, Exmouth now sounds more like a skin complaint than normal. I'm talking Withercombe. Oh. I'm talking Clist St George.

Ah. I'm talking many, many. Oh. I'm talking Clist St George. Ah. I'm talking many, many more places. You are. In South Devon. Because on one night in 1855, in February, snow fell. Nothing so odd about that. Snow fell last night. Yeah, it did.

Mm. But what was unusual was that very morning, mysterious and unexplained hoof prints appeared all across South Devon. In all of those places I just mentioned. Where? Topsham, Limston, Exmouth, Tynmouth, Luscombe, Withercam. And yes, your friend and mine, Cliss St. George. Good, because I realised I forgot to say my catchphrase for when we talk about Devon,

which is, next door sit. That's my new catchphrase. I'm trying to work on that as a catchphrase. That's really good as a catchphrase. I'm prepared to accept under duress that don't look for it, it's not there, actually is a phrase. Because it seems like people do use it. I thought it was just you.

It's definitely just me and the intro to Spinal Tap. And then apart from that. Well, that's two. That's two. That's not bad. Two points of data forms a line. On the 13th of February, 1885, the Times read,

It appears that on Thursday night last, there was a very heavy fall of snow in the neighbourhood of Exeter and the south of Devon. Now, you might expect them to go on to list loads of names of towns, but they don't. They just skip right over that. Do they even say Next Dorset? They don't. They don't even do Next Dorset.

They don't even mention, they don't even mention Clist St George. What? I know. On the following morning, the inhabitants of the above towns. Oh, so they did mention, I've just clipped it out. Sorry. I forgot. the above towns. Oh, so they did mention that. I've just clipped it out. Sorry. I forgot.

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 footprints 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 Limpston where the footprints were not observed. That does sound euphemistic. All over Limpston.

Oh, all over it. The footprints appeared to travel at least 40 and some estimated over 100 miles in a single night. Now, it's time that we come to, friend of the podcast, superstitious peasants. Yes. Those are very much our potatoes in gruel. Yep, which is just what they enjoy. Yes.

Superstitious peasants, very much our bowl of brown sludge. A grey matter. And large hunk of bread. Used as a plate. The superstitious peasants, James, were greatly afraid, convinced as they were that the footsteps belonged to none other than, also friend of the podcast, the devil himself. The devil themselves.

Or herself, because here on Lawmen we believe that women can do anything. Even be the devil. Even leave footprints across 100 miles of South Devon in a single night. Hoof. Hoof prints. Hoof prints. Hoof. Hoof prints. Hoof.

Hoof prints. I was trying to say so I didn't spit, like, pop onto the mic. Yeah, it's so hard not to pop when you say hoof prints. Hoof prints. Hoof. Hoof. Try and shoot it out the side of your mouth. Hoof. spit like pop onto the mic it's so hard not to pop when you say hoof prints hoof prints try and shoot it out the side of your mouth hoof hoof print that hoof prints makes me feel like popeye and then i've overhang my lip to kind of dispel the yeah but that makes you go, Herf Prince. Herf Prince. Herf Prince. Like perhaps a Bobby T. Gould might have said. Yeah, he might have said it like that. Now, we run into an issue here, naming-wise,

because a lot of the people who are the sources for this story are writing under code names. Oh, no. The first is GMM. Oh, good morning, mister. Good morning, mister, writing to the London Illustrated News. And he described, Labourers, their wives and children and old crones and trembling old men,

dreading to stir outside after sunset or to go half a mile into lanes or byways on call or a message, under the conviction that this was the devil's walk and no other, and that it was wicked to trifle with such a manifest proof of the great enemy's immediate presence. Now, GMM knows of which he speaks because he lives slap bang in the area where this is happening. He lives near Powderham Castle. Powderham? Yeah, it's like if you don't have space for full ham, you just take powdered ham and then add water and then slosh it in the bag. Boop.

You've got yourself a ham. I've looked up Powder Ham Castle. Looks great. You also live near Starcross Tower, which I thought sounded fantastic. Yes. Big disappointment. Don't Google Starcross.

No, it did not look as good. Is it even Romeo and Juliet themed? It's's not i think it's like a pumping station hasn't even got a balcony i know i don't maybe maybe maybe it used to be something better but very very unimpressive starcross tower now gmm good morning mister says good morning marjorie writes, A scientific acquaintance informed me of his having traced the same prints across a field up to a haystack. The surface of the stack was wholly free from marks of any kind, but on the opposite side of the stack, in a direction exactly corresponding with the tracks thus traced, the prints began again. The same fact has been ascertained in respect of a wall intervening. Two other gentlemen, residents in the same parish, pursued a line of prints during three hours and a half,

marking their progress under gooseberry bushes and espalier fruit trees, and then missing them, regained sight of the impressions on the roofs of some houses, to which their march of investigation brought them. Sorry, roofs. The roofs of some houses. I said it wrong. The roof. Roof. Roof. They got hoof on the roof. them. Sorry, roofs. The roofs of some houses. I said it wrong. The roof. Roof. They got hoof on the roof.

Hooves on the roofs. I'm fed up to my back tooth about the hoof on the roof. Now, okay. Right, James, I know you are a hard-bitten, dyed-in-the-wool sceptic. You might be thinking maybe this isn't the work of the devil. His, her, or their selves. I'm thinking this isn't the work of the devil, his, her, or their selves. I'm thinking it's not the work of one devil.

A team, a team of devils. Yes, Mike Dash, a contributing editor of the FT, 48 times, has collated a treasure trove of sources pertaining to this most mysterious visitation. Various theories have been proposed, from a monkey to the great bustard, a heron, a badger, a mouse, a rat, an otter, a swan, a kangaroo, a donkey, a cat, a wolf, a hare, or an entire flock of birds. I mean, the last one sounds possibly the most likely.

You're not going for kangaroo there? No. Well, the Reverend Musgra musgrave yes must he he pointed the finger at the kangaroo in his sermon immediately following the um the events was the kangaroo of the congregation was it a congregation jacuzzi he cried you what mate i came here in good faith I bet he offered to box anyone, that kangaroo. That's right now. You might think it unlikely that there would be a kangaroo in the area, but of course there was a kangaroo in the private menagerie

of a Mr Fish who lived in Sidmouth, and as far as we know, was a human. I mean, you're doing well on names already. What was the name of that vicar again? The vicar Musgrave? Musgrave. Musgrave. Musgrave.

Musgrave. That again, that's nominative determinism. Nominative determinism. It's a case of nominative determinism. Hey, a lad's got a case of nominative determinism over here. Come quickly, it's nominative determinism. Nominative determinism, that's right. Hey, a lad's got a case of nominative determinism over here. Come quickly, it's nominative determinism. Nominative determinism, fiend of the show. Well, you'd think Mr Fish would have had an aquarium

rather than a menagerie, but I'm imagining that he was a fish and he just had the window into his menagerie was actually a fish tank, so people thought they were speaking to the dummy behind the fish tank, but they were actually speaking to perhaps a mustachioed fish well they thought they were talking to someone in full diving gear next to a treasure chest i like your pirate ship mr fish and he would say so one of the main sources for this story goes under the code name south devon which

is kind of a confusing code name because it's also the name of the place where this happened. Writing to the Illustrated London News, South Devon dismisses these theories out of hand. All of them? He goes through them all and he dismisses them. Yeah. Wow. In actual fact, Mike Dash has tried to identify who South Devon is. has tried to identify who South Devon is.

And Mike Dash identifies South Devon as Young Durban of Newport House, Countess Weir. Countess Weir? Huh? It's spelt Countess Weir, but I'm pretty sure it's pronounced Countess Weir. If I pronounce any of these place names, none of them are spelt the way I think they should be. Yes.

Come on, limpston. So, South Devon says, Now now when we consider the distance that must have been gone over to have left these marks, I may say in almost every garden on doorsteps through extensive woods of Luscombe, upon commons in enclosures and farms, the actual progress must have exceeded a hundred miles. It is very easy for people to laugh at these appearances and to account for them in an idle way. At present, no satisfactory solution has been given. No known animal could have traversed this extent of country in one night, besides having to cross an estuary of the sea two miles broad. Neither does any known animal walk in a line of single footsteps. Not even man. That's right, James. These footsteps,

which resembled a donkey's hoof, a sort of a U shape, an inverted U shape, or an N, if you like. These hoof prints appeared eight inches or 20 centimetres apart, but one in front of the other. Right. How strange. Very strange. The most singular circumstance.

I think I've got a theory. You've got a theory? Okay. There are more theories coming, and I want to see if your theories can beat the published theories of the day. Yeah. The most singular circumstance was that this particular mark removed the snow wherever it appeared, clear as if cut with a

diamond, or branded with a hot iron. Of course, I'm not alluding to its appearance after having been trampled on, or meddled with by the curious, in and about the thoroughfares of the towns. And if you might be thinking, what do you know, young Durban of Newport House Countess Ware? The writer of the above has passed five months winter in the backwoods of Canada and has much experience in tracking wild animals and birds upon the snow and can safely say he has never seen a more clearly defined track or one that appears to be less affected by the atmosphere. Now, Mike Dash points out young Durban was 19 years old. So I don't know why, but finding out that one of the most substantial accounts of this

was written by a teenager makes me suspicious of it. Am I a boomer now, James? Yeah, maybe you are. What does a 19 yearold know about animal tracks? It's another thing. You want to get a job. You want to get off your Nintendo 64 and get a job, young Durban. He actually did go on to have a job. And also on his Nintendo 64, he was playing Animal Track Master, Super Animal Track Master 64.

He was doing the snow level of GoldenEye. Yeah. Which is good practice for... Or playing Tricky, the snowboardboarding, 1080 snowboarding, perhaps. Or Tony Hawk. Tony's Hawk. Tony's Hawk. I've got some theories now.

Do you want to try your theory before we hear some of the official period theories? All right. Well, does this come up, Alistair? Yeah. Wheel. Wheel? Wheel. Wheel. I thought of? Wheel. Wheel.

I thought of a wheel too. So you think a big wheel with hoof prints on it rolling. An annoying unicyclist. That's not narrowing it down. Sorry, a unicyclist. Thank you. Tortology there. And they just had either a mind to cause a fuss and had modified their wheel in some way,

or they just happened to have a weird sort of track on it. Or I have looked up, because they say 100 miles. So they say. Overnight in the winter, so more hours of night, a kangaroo can go up to 13 to 16 miles an hour, comfortable hopping speed. CHS? Yes, that hopping speed. CHS? Yes, that's it, CHS.

I mean, obviously you wouldn't know that, but that's the phrase kangaroo enthusiasts would use, CHS. I never played Trackmaster 64. If you'd played the kangaroo level of Goldeneye, you would know this. He hops right off that dam. It can sustain a speed of 25 miles an hour for about a mile at a time so over the course of a night if only it had somewhere to keep snacks to keep itself going for that amount of time yeah i'm gonna probably join vicar vicar must

rave or whatever his name was in pointing my finger. You think it was a kangaroo? I'm probably going to stand behind the vicar, though, and point my finger. Yeah, the kangaroo theory and the wheel theory, they don't quite explain the full story. You know, they don't explain them appearing on roofs, do they? Kangaroos can jump. They don't explain the hoofs appearing on either side of a wall that couldn't be scaled. But it's a good theory.

Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I've got no explanation for that, to be scaled but it's a good theory yeah i don't know yeah i've got no explanation for that to be honest apart from parkour i should have said i've got a visual aid for you of the hoof prints go on so i'm showing you the first image there okay so on the left you'll see south devon's account of quite not very well drawn hoof prints following a pretty straight line. And the second image is Good Morning Marjorie's much more detailed sketch. Very detailed. So as you can see, the prints themselves are convex,

suggesting that the hoof was concave. Not as was reported in the Times, convex. They got it wrong. The original report reported The wrong con Or they thought it was going in the other direction Yep, maybe Enter

The famous naturalist Richard Owens Finally Richard Owens was asked And he came up with a very Simple explanation, James Badgers Badgers Badgers Of course it's blooming badgers he wrote to the illustrated

london news and it was just like a four-page spread massive font just the word badgers i'm summarizing um pretty much what he said was you're all fools i naturalist richard owen famous naturalist can tell just from the description that you're describing badgers. What? Because they're... What? Well, if you look at the next image, you'll see a badger's print next to the mystery devil's hoof print, and you'll admit they're a similar size, I suppose.

The badger's footprint doesn't have a hollow in the middle, but they're a similar size. Yes, in that drawing. But badgers are famously quadrupedal. I don't need to tell you or the naturalist Richard O in that. That's the kind of thing a naturalist wouldn't miss. Is this maybe a sort of tank badger? Somehow they've evolved like a track. A tread. If they have, then God help us all, James. Maybe it was a badger testing out new badger technology. james maybe it was a badger testing out new badger technology now the badgers call you well okay so badgers are quadrupedal yes but naturalist richard owen can account for that

and for the unusually large size of the prints which is the badgers back paws were landing roughly on top of the front paws so creating mysteriously large prints but seemingly not four i was that maybe cartwheels as well could have been another option could be cartwheeling cartwheeling badger a cartwheeling badger for 100 miles that was it as far as owens was concerned that was it it was a badger even though that doesn't really explain oh he also correctly makes the point that it's obviously not one animal. Right. Because it's ludicrous to suggest it was one animal. And to be fair, while the footprints were found all over the place,

nobody followed the footprints from start to end. So nobody knows quite the distance that the prints covered. Nobody knows if the different prints connected together. And the way that the badger theory falls down is that if badgers were walking and stepping inside their own footprints, they would leave a bipedal tread, like you or I, James. They would be staggered left, right, left, right, left, right.

Oh, unless they're doing full catwalk badger. Unless they were doing full catwalk badger, FCB. I thought you were going to say they would leave droppings. If they're like you or I, they would leave droppings over the course of a night. As we would. And in fact, some droppings were found. The devils. The naturalist Richard Owen was informed about this and did not include it in his appraisal of the situation.

The devil's plop plops. Yeah. And they were, James. And I can't believe I'm telling you this. They were white. Mysterious white. The origin of the now hoary old gag about white dog poo. We found it.

I did a white poo once. I know you did. Maybe the devil was in you. And it smelled of sulphur. I and the listener are well aware that you once did a white poo. Don't think you can spring that on us as a surprise. We know all too well. So it's seeming more and more likely that you were the person who left these tracks.

Doing my full catwalk in a pair of fancy shoes. Cartwheeling and catwalking and occasionally leaving behind the devil's plop-plops. So the Badger Theory is not the worst theory. No, the wheel one is. No, honestly, there are some worse ones than that. I'm going to refer you to the next image. Thomas Fox's theory was that the prints were created by one rat jumping.

Yes. Yeah, so you can see in the image here, were created by one rat jumping. Yes. Yeah. So you can see in the image here, you can see the arms, the front arms and back legs. Oh, yeah. Here we go. Oh, yes. You can see how if a rat had a mind to imitate a horse's hoof,

it could arrange its back legs and front legs into a into a horseshoe shape yes and then leap for 100 miles could it be bothered to do it for 100 miles um could why would where would that happen um i've looked at rats prints in the snow i've looked at rabbits prints in the snow they don't they don't do that because why would they just for a laugh maybe maybe once in the history of the world a rabbit has thought a rat has thought for a laugh i'm gonna pretend to be the devil look at me i'm a horse i'm a little donkey i'm a cartwheeling donkey but not for 40 miles after you know after a couple of gardens you'd be like i don't think I'm getting on that roof. Forget this. Manfrey Frederick Wood suggested it was, of course, 400 Romani travellers on stilts.

Just being weird. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Pause. Pause. His name is Manfrey Frederick Wood. That sounds like a Twitter handle that's also a charity or trying to raise my awareness about something. He's called Manfrey Frederick Woods.

Yep, Manfrey Frederick Wood, singular. Manfrey Frederick Wood. It's nonsense. Other people have been blamed include the three-legged beast of Barrysdale. Barrys what? I don't know if it's Barrisdale or Barrysdale. It's a place in Scotland.

I'm not sure how a three-legged beast leaves footprints like this, but he's in the mix. Right. He's got two front legs and one back leg. I guess maybe if he'd injured one of his front legs. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

But you'd expect to see it dragging in the snow. Yes. Poor beast of Barrysdale. And how did it get down there from Scotland? It's not realistic. I think it might have wings, but it's not important. We'll probably deal with that in another episode about the Beast of Barrysdale.

Yes, please. Another correspondent who couldn't get his theory published, his name was WW, or as it's printed, W.W. This my grandad trying to remember a website? According to W.W. Five days after the appearance of the Devonshire hoof marks, a swan turned up and this is according to

the book Oddities. A swan turned up, alive, but exhausted. So dramatic. Blimmin' frankinswans again. That swan looks like he's had a hard time. Alive but exhausted at Saint-Denis in France.

Wearing. Oh, wearing? You can see how this is relevant, obviously. Wearing a silver collar with an inscription engraved on it stating that the bird belonged to the domain of Prince Hohenlohe. Hohen what? Hohenlohe. H-O-H-E-N-L-O-H-E.

Are you saying that funny bit so you don't pop? Hohenlohe. Hohenlohe. Hohenlohe. It belonged to the domain of Prince Hohenlohe in Germany. Right. W.W.Dot maintained that this bird, whose feet had probably been, quote,

padded in the shape of a donkey's hoof or shoe by its owner to prevent damage to the garden in which it was normally kept, had no doubt made the mysterious marks. It had flown to Devon from Germany. Yeah, it had flown to Devon because, James, sorry, excuse me, you'll recall that when it turned up in Saint-Denis, it was alive but exhausted. That's true, it would be knackered.

The only reasonable explanation was in the absence of any evidence that it had been given a padded donkey's hoof-shaped shoe was that it had been given a padded donkey's hoof-shaped shoe and it had flown and then walked 100 miles in Devon and then went to France. Yeah, that would tie you out. And unsurprisingly, it lost the padded hoof thing in transit. Well, obviously. It'll be in a channel somewhere.

So I suppose the most leaden, sceptic, rational explanation for this is the contagion theory, which is lots of people in different places saw different animals' prints and all went cuckoo about it. Yes. However, I think there's a reasonable rebuttal to that, which is that these were simple country folk, the people of Devon, Hicks, Rubes, Rednecks. They would know what animal prints in snow looked like.

They would know. And Bobby Gould makes exactly that point. It's got to be something that they weren't used to seeing. And he makes a very strange and interesting connection. Because those hoof prints did appear in one other place. And that was on the other side of the planet. What? Is it a kangaroo again?

On a sub-Antarctic island in the southern Indian Ocean. Oh. Not Australia, not friend of the show Australia. It wasn't a gang of kangaroos, no. A kangaroo. I hope that's the plural. Very interestingly, at the time that this happened, Captain Sir James Clark Ross was in England, but he does not involve himself in this debacle at all,

which is greatly to the disappointment of you, me and Bobby Gould. Because in his book, Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions, he didn't need catchy titles in those days. He describes travelling in the Erebus and Terror. You know those famous boats, the Erebus and... Oh, I thought you were saying he was on an Airbus. He describes travelling Ryanair and the terror, James, of travelling on a budget airline, let me tell you. I just thought, by the way, just slight sidebar,

you know snakes on a plane? Slight sidebar, you say? Yes, I know snakes on a plane. And what's the name of the snake that eats its own tail? Ouroboros. Ouroboros on an Airbus. Anyway, carry on. I'm just putting that down there so it's copyrighted.

The Erebus and Terra, famous, famous boats, because they were lost in Lord Franklin's ill-fated quest to find the Northwest Passage, as you well know, James. Oh, yes. Yes. Because there's the TV show, The Terra, where there's silly old captain and then there's, what's his name, Jared Harris playing Crozier, the guy in charge of the aerobus. He's like, this is a really bad idea,

but I'll do it anyway because I'm in the Navy. You don't need to watch the show now. That's what happens in every episode. Tell me it's not. Tell me it's not. I'll not. I've only watched the first episode. So for me, yes.

It's very good, but it is a series of him saying first episode. So for me, yes. It's very good. But it is a series of him saying, that's a terrible idea, Captain. Let's do it. Because you're the captain. Yeah. We're going to have to blimmin' do it. So prior to being lost.

Get these mother... Airbus off my Airbus. Well, is Jared Harris doing a Northern Irish accent in Robber us on an Airbus? Yes, he is. Because it makes the pun work better. Oh, it's jared harris doing a northern irish accent in robber us on an airbus yes he is because it makes the pun work better oh it's amazing amazing that you managed to get him for that yeah he just loved the project he just heard the title and was like i ain't gonna be on that i like he's not from northern ireland i know but he was already auditioning he's so in character yeah uh before before they were

lost trying to find the northwest passage the erebus and terror the nwp were visiting the desolation islands oh also known as kurgulan islands by the people that live there who really resent the other name yeah well not that some not that. Some people do live there. They are quite desolate, not much growth. There's not a great deal of animal life. In May 1840, Captain Sir James Clark Ross records, Of land animals, we saw none, and the only traces we could discover of there being any on this island

were the singular footsteps of a pony or ass found by the party detached for surveying purposes under the command of Lieutenant Bird. Again, as far as we know, not a bird. Probably a man. Okay. And described by Dr. Robertson as being three inches in length and two and a half in breadth, having a small and deeper depression on each side, and shaped like a horseshoe. It is by no means improbable that the animal has been cast on shore

from some wrecked vessel. They traced its footsteps for some distance in the recently fallen snow, in hopes of getting sight of it, but lost the tracks on reaching a large space of rocky ground which was free from snow. One wonders, adds Bobby Gould, if they had got sight of it, what they would have seen. He leaves it open, but he speculates that the source of the footprints can't be an animal that would commonly be seen walking in the snow in Devon. Right. So it follows that it must be an animal that rarely walks in snowy areas, and therefore we don't know what its footprints, if indeed it has feet, look like. Could it be,

I put to you, James, could it be that a sea creature from the darkest depths was flopping about abroad in South Devon that fateful night, leaving its strange sucker prints all over gardens and walls and roofs. You decide. Right now? No, you can think about it. Have a think about it. Okay, thanks. Can I have a sec to think?

Yes. But the offer is on the table. Okay. All right. There's a lot to think? Yes. But the offer is on the table. Okay. All right. There's a lot of interest from other parties in this theory. I'm imagining an octopus that's sort of turned itself into a wheel, like in a Hanna-Barbera cartoon. A Hanna-Barbera cartoon.

Hanna-Barbera cartoon. And it's sort of turned itself into a wheel, and it's speeding around yep the the county of devon it's the only reasonable explanation that accounts for all the phenomena exactly spintopus was there ink deposits anywhere apart from the white there was one the white poo i'm afraid is all we've got there weren't any black black splashes small about the size of a grape the white poo if that helps yeah a bit more like driftwood, but yeah, that sounds about right. And that's the story of the mystery.

We'll never know. We'll never know. It's unexplained. The unexplained mystery. The oddity. The unexplained fact. The unexplained facts of the Devil's Hoofprints. Wow, that's a fantastic tale.

Thank you. Are you ready to score this tale, James? Yeah. All right. Oh, yeah. My first category is names. Okay, then. Naming.

Yes, there were some great names. Thank you. Limpster. Lovely. The Unfortunate Skin Complaint X-Men. I don't want that. Powderham. Powderham.

Powderham. Yeah, you don't want to mix them two up either. Mr. Fish. Lieutenant Bird. What was he called? Reverend. Reverend Mustgrave. Reverend Simply Mustgrave.

Young Durban, Barry's Dale. W dot W dot. W dot, yeah, there were some good code names, which are a kind of name. Prince Hearnleur. Hearnleur. Prince Hearnleur. And Saint Dennis in France. Sad news, the collective noun for a group of kangaroos is not a gangaroo.

What is it? Court, herd, mob or troop. Mob. Mob is very Aussie. Mob's good. It's called a mob by Australians in particular. There you go. Didn't I just say that? I sensed it. I sensed that's what Australians would call them. It was a mob of roos, they would say, something like that. Yes.

I hope the Australians who joined the podcast are skipping some of them. Yeah. Do you wish to, for the purposes of this scoring section, accept the gift of Uriburus on an Erebus? Yeah, yeah, I'll have that. But also we've got the Erebus and Terror. We've got Kerguelen Island slash the Desolation Islands. The Desolation Islands.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's massive. I can't. What was it called? St. Bernard's Clists? Clists and George? Clists and George.

It's five out of five. Oh, wow. Okay, great. I mean, really. Thank you. Come on. Those are glorious smorgasb out of five. Oh, wow. Okay, great. I mean, really. Thank you. Come on. Those are a glorious smorgasbord of names. Thank you.

It's a panoply. What's it called? Panoply? No. Panoply? Panoply. Don't know what that means, but it's one of them are names. Now, my second category is supernatural.

I've tried to explain it using rational means. You have. And it defies explanation it does i did also look up what what's the most um i just googled the term animal pranksters yeah yeah it could have been an animal playing a prank yeah like that like that rat who decided to just be weird even on peta peta.org they've got the nine animals who are better at April Fool's Day than you, which is a bold claim, PETA. Why are they bringing me into this?

Okay. Yeah. Is it the nine animals that are better at April Fool's Day than the comedian and podcaster Alasdair Beckett-King? Or is it just you? Yeah, I just read it like that for quick. No, it is anyone reading it. Oh, it's anyone reading it?

Literally anyone with the power of reading. I was feeling a little bit targeted. There are orangutans in Borneo who try to mislead predators by holding leaves in their mouths to disguise their voices. Like Bugs Bunny saying, he went that-a-way. They just put leaves in their mouths and go like, I don't remember a time. What are you talking about?

I've never seen one. An orangutan without a beard made of leaves? I've no idea. Yes. That is ridiculous. So what I'm saying is it pretty much has to be a supernatural explanation. Great, great. This is limited to one 100-mile track on one night.

So it's going to be just an even three. All right, okay. All right. Fair enough. There are lots of naturalistic explanations for it, I suppose. Yes. Annoying unicyclist. None of them quite satisfy, which leads me on to my next category.

Badger caterpillar tracks. My next category is actually snow explanation. Snow explanation. Because they're snow explanation. No satisfying explanation. there are actually loads of explanations now that i think about it but none of them satisfy none of them are any good they're all terrible they're all terrible one of them is very funny which is the um rat prankster yeah rat prankster no that definitely did that like everything else

said apart from the existence of the hoof prints, did not happen. I was very confused by the donkey one, frankly. I don't know why you said all that. What donkey one? The Desolation Island donkey. What was it? It was that similar hoof prints were found without an animal attached to them very far away, which is why Robert Gould thinks it might be something that came out of the sea.

Right. Which implies that it might have been. He's not really nailing his colours to the mast. I got confused. I thought it was a desolation donkey. Desolation donkey. Desolation, which is the name of my forthcoming there's no explanation for this alistair it's five out of five great thank you thank you i'm trying to think of other names other names you went through before coming up with desolation

donkey bereft ass sad mule yeah yeah yeah my final category and i appreciate the scores have been high so far so i'm a little nervous because i think you're going to want to take me down a peg or two, but I've put my heart into it. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was making people think he was a kangaroo, a cartwheeling octopus, 400 Romani travellers on stilts, a donkey from an island in the distance, or a prankster in a wheel. Rat prankster. Or an orangutan with leaves in its mouth.

That is the full title of the category. That is the greatest trick the devil ever pulled. Good luck to anyone who keeps a spreadsheet of these, fitting that into the cell on Excel. I would make sure you don't do the function where it ties it to the length of the sentence. Don't wrap around. You don't want to wrap around. It's going to mess that up. Well, wow. If it

was the devil though. Yeah. It's really committing to the bit. It's over a hundred miles of hopping. That ain't nothing to the devil. At speed as well. He's a master of magic spells and illusion James. No, no, no, he's not. I mean, admittedly, that is Mandrake from Defenders of the Earth.

You're thinking of Mandrake, yeah. Defenders. Come on, the devil came out of the sky. His rockets ignite. Yes, they did. And they couldn't see him, but he did walk like a ghost who walks. Well, the thing about the devil is his strength is a legend. That's true.

He lifts. He does lift? That's how witches fly. It's the devil carrying them. Is it? Yeah, yeah. Well, according to Malleus Maleficarum. Malleus Maleficarum?

I don't know if I'm saying that correctly. I don't care, frankly. No. Right. I've just got the theme tune for Defenders of the Earth going on now. So, final category, Defenders of the Earth. Defenders. Defenders.

Do you think if we were at a live show and we said, Defenders of the Earth, the audience would say, Defenders. Because I think they would. I hope so. I think the thing is, though, if the devil did want to pull this trick off, what he has the advantage of is the fact that the beast's calling brother. Yeah, that's true.

So he'd be able to get some of them involved. So, I mean, it has to be devilry. Yep. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was making people think he was a kangaroo or an octopus or a jumping rat or a cartwheeling

or a man inside a whale or 400 Romani travellers or an annoying unicyclist. Sad donkey. Or a sad donkey. Yeah, a cheeky rat. Yeah, five out of five for all of that.

Absolutely. Five out of five for a cheeky little rat. Thank you. As God is my witness, I am that rat. A twist ending. What a twist ending.

That is a great story. And then, James, I walk away from you and then when you look down, a single track of footprints. Oh, but those hooves are ever so shiny. Oh, they're glint, glint, glint, glint. Are you using the devil's

hoof paste? Yes, I always do. This whole episode has been an elaborate advert for the devil's hoof paste. Lawmen is sponsored by the devil's hoof paste. I think you were ever so generous there. I really didn't think I was going to get five out of five for names. I don't know.

It's just that the mood took me. I have vaguely heard of that story before, and I really like it. It's a good story. I think you're going soft, James. Yeah, maybe. You're too old for this game, old man. But, James, the hoodlums are overrunning the town Ah, don't be alright

What happened to your spirit? Let's just sit down with the hoodlums Have a bit of a chinwag In summary, join the Patreon Yeah, for more of my chilled-out opinions on hoodlums And bonus episodes of the podcast To hear more from hoodlum-loving podcaster James J. Shaft, go to patreon.com forward slash lawmenpod.

We've said it so many times, I can never remember. It might not be, but I'm just saying it is because that's just how I'm going, baby. Wait a minute. You're going to meet your new girlfriend tonight? Jessica's going to laugh at these hooves. Look at the state of those hooves. What can I do?

Well, you could borrow my The Devil's Hoof Paste. And then you... Good, I'm sick of taking two separate pastes into the shower.