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Amnesia 9
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Amnesia - Issue 09 (1993-02-01)(Eclipse)(Disk 2 of 2).adf
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ARTICLES
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A walk in the country
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1993-01-31
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DWhen the devil walked in Devon.N three-quarter inches wide and eight
inches apart. They appeared to have
------------------------------- been made by a creature with hooves,
walking upright on two legs.
Article by Sandman. To the country people of the area,
there was no doubt about the cause of
the footprints. They had been made by
All over southern England, the winter the cloven hooves of Satan.
of 1854-5 was the coldest in living
memory. Overnight,on February 9,there The weird prints began in the middle
had been a severe frost and two inch- of a garden in the parish of Totnes
es of snow blanketed the County of and ended as mysteriously as they had
Devon. The River Exe was frozen over started, in a field in Littleham. In
and birds were trapped were they had one village they led into a shed and
stood in the ice. out at the other side. Whatever made
When dawn came, the snow lay white, them had gone through a hole six
smooth and even, marked only by bird inches in diameter.In another village
and animal tracks and, across 100 the creature appeared to have crawled
miles of the country a trail of myst- through a drainpipe,leaving tracks at
erious footprints.They zigzagged thr- both ends. In some places the marks
ough five parishes, across gardens, seemed to have been made by fiery
over rooftops, haystacks, walls and hooves in the hard-frozen snow or, as
in and out of barns. at Woodbury,by a hot iron outside the
They were four inches long, two and door of a church.
Hundreds of people saw the prints and travelling show, then returned to its
scores of letters poured in to the cage without anyone noticing its
newspapers in which people debated absence. Rats, rabbits, squirrels and
what could have caused them. Near the toads were also suggested as possible
village of Dawlish,the trail led into culprits. A vicar, the Rev. Henry
dense bracken and undergrowth. When Fudsen, gave a sermon in which he
dogs were brought in to flush out the declared the prints to be the paw
thicket, they are said to have marks of several cats.
retreated, howling dismally.
One group of villagers, believing
The naturalist Sir Richard Owen, in a there might be a wild beast at large,
letter to the Illustrated London News set out with pitchforks and bludgeons
suggested the prints were those of a to track it down, without success.
badger.He pointed out that the badger
places its hind feet in the marks Local people were not convinced. Many
left by the forefeet. Although it refused to go out after sunset, and
hibernates, it sometimes ventures out children hid in the closets and
in search of food. Other suggestions cupboards, terrified by the fireside
included a fox, an otter, cranes,wild gossip they had heard: they believed
cats,a donkey or a pony with a broken that the devil had walked in Devon
shoe. One amateur naturalist even that winter night.
suggested that the prints resembled
those of a kangaroo and that the -=Nah! Everybody knows that it was
animal might have escaped from a REALLY a one legged wombat who had
a tendancy to wear strange hoof-
shaped slippers! - POLARIS=-
Article by : SANDMAN/ASYLUM
Clipart by : MOZ/ECLIPSE