I read a story once and would like to find it again.

It was definately UK, possibly the South West.

The villagers awoke one snowy morning to find small foot prints, like a rabbit or fox, but there was something about them that was strange, I don't think it was the way they looked because they would have assumed fox. I think it was something more like the footprints went through walls and hedgerows.

Obviously for the story to be strange the walls would need to be too tall for a fox to jump over. And possibly the footprints went through houses too.

Any ideas?

I think I read that story too.

I will try to find it, maybe in one of the books of Charles Fort.

I have also read a story like this in a Tom Slemen 'Haunted Liverpool' Book. The story that i read was about hoof like footprints in the snow leading through a area in Liverpool, called Anfield.

To be honest i think this could be a 'urban legend' so to speak.

I do not know if this is it, but I found what I had in mind.

From the "Book of the Damned"
by Charles Fort

Chapter XXVIII

NOTES and Queries, 7-8-508:
A correspondent who had been to Devonshire writes for information as to a story that he had heard there: of an occurrence of about thirty-five years before the date of writing:

Of snow upon the ground--of all South Devonshire waking up one morning to find such tracks in the snow as had never before been heard of--"clawed footmarks" or "an unclassifiable form"--alternating at huge but regular intervals with what seemed to be the impression of the point of a stick--but the scattering of the prints--amazing expanse of territory covered--obstacles, such as hedges, walls, houses, seemingly surmounted--

Definately an interesting story makes you wonder. Has anything like that happened recently? I'm inclined to believe the urban legend explanation but who knows.

Originally posted by ArMaP
I do not know if this is it, but I found what I had in mind.

From the "Book of the Damned"
by Charles Fort

Chapter XXVIII

NOTES and Queries, 7-8-508:
A correspondent who had been to Devonshire writes for information as to a story that he had heard there: of an occurrence of about thirty-five years before the date of writing:

Of snow upon the ground--of all South Devonshire waking up one morning to find such tracks in the snow as had never before been heard of--"clawed footmarks" or "an unclassifiable form"--alternating at huge but regular intervals with what seemed to be the impression of the point of a stick--but the scattering of the prints--amazing expanse of territory covered--obstacles, such as hedges, walls, houses, seemingly surmounted--

Looks like the same story, do you know what date yours was written?

My dads Grandfather was the mayor of Truroe in Cornwall during the appearence of the hoof prints in Devon, actually going into devon to view the prints, and when I asked my dad about this he readily admits that when he was a boy in 1950's, the Cornish had a fear these hoof prints would return. To clarify, these hoof prints were not just on the ground, they went over barns and roof tops, but the one place they did not go over was any of the village churches - these the hoof prints circled but not crossed. One roof had prints on that appeared to have stopped at the bottom of a drain pipe, and carried on at the gutter on the roof.

My dads always been fascinated about this story and other Cornish / Devonshire legends. One that scared my dad silly when he was young was the whooper - This was a strange beast that would leave the caves on the coast and hunt on the moors and coastal paths - even in the 1950's, my dad and other children were forbidden to enter the caves due to this strange creature and the noises. The footprints of the whooper were said to be hoof shaped!

Apparently it is the same case.

Some lines below the text I posted is this.

From the "Book of the Damned"
by Charles Fort

London Times, Feb. 16, 1855:
"Considerable sensation has been caused in the towns of Topsham, Lympstone, Exmouth, Teignmouth, and Dawlish, in Devonshire, in consequence of the discovery of a vast number of foot tracks of a most strange and mysterious description."
The story is of an incredible multiplicity of marks discovered in the morning of Feb. 8, 1855, in the snow, by the inhabitants of many towns and regions between towns. This great area must of course be disregarded by Prof. Owen and the other correlators. The tracks were in all kinds of unaccountable places: in gardens enclosed by high walls, and up on the tops of houses, as well as in the open fields. There was in Lympstone scarcely one unmarked garden. We've had heroic disregards but I think that here disregard was titanic. And, because they occurred in single lines, the marks are said to have been "more like those of a biped than of a quadruped"--as if a biped would place one foot precisely ahead of another--unless it hopped--but then we have to think of a thousand, or of thousands.
It is said that the marks were "generally 8 inches in advance of each other."
"The impression of the foot closely resembles that of a donkey's shoe, and measured from an inch and a half, in some instances, to two and a half inches across."

Thanks to madgreebo for the additional info and the interesting family connection.

It would be nice to be able to read the "Times" as it was printed back then. I'm sure the British Library would have it, but I'd prefer an online source.

Two good links there, thank you.

So we now have three recorded incidents, 13th Century, 19th Century, & 20th Century.

I think it sounds like some soort of weather event, some kind of lightening. This would explain it going across houses and going through garden walls. I think I will ignore accounts that they did not go over churches but went around and they went through drainpipes (or appeared to).

It remains a mystery.

I heard this story a long time ago and it was thought that the "Hoof prints" were caused by a hot air balloon the drifted over the town in the night. It had a loose cable hanging from it with buckle on the end, and that's what made the marks.

I saw some huge footprints in the snow in the forest once though. got me thinking about bigfoots


(How do you guys make your signature pictures show up, and not as a link???)

[edit on 31-3-2006 by Aztecatl]

[edit on 31-3-2006 by Aztecatl]