The Legend:
Variations Theories
In 1855, some time between 11 pm on February 7 and dawn on February 8, a strange event of some sort left its trace across one hundred miles of British countryside.
On the morning of February 8, a trail of tracks was found in the snow stretching from Topsham and Bicton in the North, through Exmouth, across the unfrozen bay near Powdersham Castle, and on to its end in Dawles and Totnes in the South; a distance across Devonshire of a little over a hundred miles. Since the snowfall was known to have ended at 11 pm on the previous night, the trail, despite its impossible length, must have been created within the few hours between then and dawn, when the tracks were first noticed by a baker in Topsham.
The baker saw the tracks leading up to a point three feet in front of his shop's door, where they turned towards a five-foot brick wall. He noticed the top of the wall was disturbed with the same tracks, but didn't give it much more thought until his neighbors informed him of the length of the trail. And what a trail!
The line of tracks seemed to ignore all obstacles in their path; they trailed over the tops of snow-covered wagons, walls, and houses. At one point the trail entered a shed and left on the other side, having apparently traveled through a hole only six inches in diameter in the shed's back wall. Elsewhere, the trail led to a drainpipe and away from the opposite end, as if the unknown beast had crawled through the pipe. The prints were said to have appeared to be burned into the snow, as with a hot poker. Near the village of Dawlish, the trail entered a thick undergrowth that, it's said, dogs refused to enter.
Beyond the unknown nature of their creation, the tracks themselves were strange. They were tiny 'U' shaped marks, all in a line as if a single foot had been hopping along. Each mark was 4 inches long, 2-3/4 inches wide, and invariably eight inches from the next.
Groups of villagers followed the trail armed with pitchforks and bludgeons, expecting some great beast. By nightfall, the local populace was in a panic, many believing the tracks to be hoofmarks left by a visit from the devil himself, a theory that could not be dispelled by the 'experts' who could offer no better explanation. The story of the strange trail was covered extensively by the Times of London and other papers, and many of these experts offered up their opinions on the matter. The naturalist Sir Richard Owens suggested that the prints were those of a badger in a letter to the Times. Other guesses included foxes, otters, cranes and other birds, cats, mice, rats, rabbits, squirrels, toads, a kangaroo, or a donkey or pony with a broken shoe, but nothing fit the known facts... and the event never occurred again.
Frank Edwards, in his account of this story in Stranger Than Science, adds that some experts put forward the theory that the tracks were made by two or three creatures of an unknown type that just happened to travel in such a way as to make their individual trails look like one long one. It's a pretty nebulous theory, but one that helps support Mr. Edwards own theory of a connection between this event and the discovery of some unusual corpses on Canvey Island a hundred years later (See "The Canvey Island Monsters"). It's also interesting to note that, while stating the more spectacular features of this event, Mr. Edwards forgets to mention the year it happened.
In Charles Berlitz's World of the Incredible but True, Mr. Berlitz gives a very brief account of this event -- one paragraph -- yet he still manages to make a mistake by asserting that the prints went up walls, which they most definitely didn't.
The account of the event given in Strange Stories, Amazing Facts gives the date the tracks appeared as the night of February 9, 1855, rather than February 7 (thus, in this version the tracks are discovered on February 10). This version states that the winter was unusually cold, to the point the the Exe River froze over; if rivers were indeed freezing over, then whatever made the tracks may have had an easier time crossing the bay near Powdersham Castle than one would normally suppose. The starting point of the tracks is given as "a garden in the parish of Totnes," and the end point as a field at Littleham.
As mentioned, Sir Richard Owen put forth the theory that it was a badger (or pack of badgers) that created the trail. He pointed out that the badger places its hindfeet into the prints made by its forepaws when it travels; and, although they normally hibernate through winter, badgers do sometimes venture out for food in the middle of the season. It should be noted that Sir Owen never actually saw the Devonshire prints himself; he based his theory on illustrations of the melting prints by a friend. Obviously, to even consider his theory plausible, it must first be accepted that a single badger could make a one-hundred mile trail overnight, or that a number of badgers, operating independently, should just happen to align their searches as to create the illusion of a single trail.
According to Strange Stories, Amazing Facts, several other theories of a questionable worth were put forth. It's said that an amateur naturalist suggested that the trail had been caused by a kangaroo that might have escaped from a traveling menagerie and later returned with no one noticing. A vicar, the Rev. Henry Fudsen, is credited with a sermon that squarely placed the blame on the paw marks of cats.
