Quicunque

There was no denying the footprints in the snow on the morning of February 9, 1895. The odd tracks appeared in several towns in South Devon, England. Residents of Lympstone, Exmouth, Topsham, Dawlish, and Teignmouth all reported the same thing. During the night some weird and uncanny creature had raced in a straight line through these towns, covering a hundred miles and more and leaving behind the tracks nobody could identify.

Each track, about 4 inches in length and 2-3/4 in width, was exactly 8 inches apart. They were roughly shaped like a hoofprint and were promptly christened "The Devil's Footprints" by all who saw them. Even the conservative London Times printed a report of the footprints in the snow...

Going straight across country, the tracks never swerved. They were found upon the top of 14-foot walls and they crossed the roofs of barns and houses, went up and over snow-covered piles of hay and even appeared on the tops of wagons which had been left out all night. It was as if the creature had leaped up or down, for the tracks showed no apparent change of pace or speed. In many places it was reported that the snow had been "branded" away or melted from the ground where the "feet" had touched....

Over the hundred-mile course, the distance between the tracks never varied from the regular 8 inches, yet how could anyone or anything travel that far in a single night without varying its stride? Too many people saw the tracks for it to have been a joke or a local phenomenon. In some instances the prints vanished at the edge of unfrozen ponds or rivers, and appeared again exactly in line on the opposite side, to race away in that straight and mysterious flight across the sleeping countryside. And in all that distance, no one saw it, no one heard it. Only the tracks remained as evidence of the creatures passing.

Rest of this article here: 'The Devil's footprints': solving a classic mystery

Other sources on the Devil's Footprints:
Charles Fort, The Book of the Damned, chapter 28 1919
Mysterious Britain: The Devil's Footprints

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

You are William John Cavendish-Bentinck-Scott, the Fifth Duke of Portland!

Sometime Marquis of Tichfield, Earl of Portland, Viscount Woodstock, Baron of Cirencester, co-heir to the Barony of Ogle and renowned as the finest judge of horseflesh in England, you took the tradition of aristocratic eccentricity to unprecedented heights. Having inherited the stately home of Welbeck Abbey, you proceeded to construct miles of underground tunnels and a ballroom, in pink, beneath it. The ballroom was complete except for one small detail. It had no floor. Despite this vast home, you lived exclusively in a suite of five rooms, each one also pink.

Having been turned down by your opera singer objet d'amour, Adelaide Kemble, in your youth, you suffered a broken heart and never married. This did not stop you from caring deeply about the wellbeing of your servants. Occasionally you would even help them muck out the stables. However, you did not neglect discipline, forcing disobedient underlings to skate themselves to exhaustion on your subterranean skating rink. Servants were given strict instructions regarding conduct: if they met you in a corridor, they were to ignore your existence while you froze to the spot until they were out of sight; and a chicken was to be kept roasting at all times in case you felt like sneaking into the kitchen for a snack.

You became ever more eccentric with age. You built another tunnel, this time to the railway station, through which you would ride your carriage. When you reached the station your carriage, with you inside, would be hoisted up onto the train in its entirety.

Upon your death, your multitude of titles passed to your cousin, who was obliged to delve into your curious domain to find your body once the servants had reported your absence. Entering your private rooms, he found that, aside from a commode in the centre of your bedroom, the only objects in the whole suite were hundreds of hatboxes, each containing a single brown wig.

Comment: Interesting result for a hoarder with antisocial habits such as myself! I went to Welbeck Abbey once. Or at least, I had a cup of tea in the garden centre adjoining it. I don't know if it still is, but at the time I was last that way, the Abbey itself was closed to the public (which I'm sure His Grace would have approved of) - it was a military academy or something like that (which I sure he wouldn't) - gack! I would like to see the underground ballroom and those tunnels if they still exist.

This is beautiful, isn't it? It could be a modernist paining - something by Klee, perhaps? No, it's actually the oldest wall-painting in the world - 11,000 years old.

It was uncovered at the Neolithic settlement of Djade al-Mughara on the Euphrates, northeast of the city of Aleppo in northern Syria, and forms part of an adobe circular wall of a large house with a wooden roof. The red came from burnt hematite rock, the white from crushed limestone and the black from charcoal. Surely it can be no coincidence that similar geometric designs can been seen even in Turkish and Levantine kilims today?

The Neolithic inhabitants of Djade al-Mughara were hunter-gathers, and the several villages that have been found in this region seem to have co-existed peacefully. The structure in which the painting was found seems to have been a communal house, which was stuffed with mud when the village was abandoned at a later date. A large number of flints and weapons have been found at the site as well as human skeletons buried under houses.

Source

This is fascinating - I love this kind of history mystery!

"When a Yorkshire archaeology group began excavating some 17th century lime kilns in the Dales National Park, they expected to find remains linked to the once important industry.
Instead, they found a mysterious collection of horse bones buried inside the kilns, which had then been backfilled. Members of the Ingleborough Archaeology Group are now looking for clues to the significance of the strange burial. One theory is that the remains were ritually buried to ward off evil before the kilns were abandoned."
Mystery Of Horse Bones Found In 17th Century Yorkshire Lime Kilns

Burials of horse skulls go back to the Iron Age, at least. Even as late as the 18th century workmen were burying horse skulls in buildings, but the mystery here is why the skulls were deliberately placed when the kilns were closed down.