Arthur Conan Doyle believed
the bright fae might not be myth,
maybe the Cottingley hoaxers
muddled his rational pith!
Perhaps if he'd gone to Ireland,
in groves of the Hawthorne tree
where troops of faeries romp wildly
weaving their magic to see.
Then he could think logically,
like a Victorian sage~
simple answers are often best:
believe, respect, always praise.
Benevolent tricksters, people
of the mounds parading forth
for good or ill, depends on your
deft-thinking and gifts of torte
The Devil’s Footprints
9 February, 1855
The last snowfall was at midnight
and we found the hoof marks at six o’clock
the following morning.
They stretched on for over a hundred miles,
mostly in straight lines,
over houses, hayricks and rivers,
on snow-covered walls and rooftops,
leading up to and exiting drainpipes.
We set forth with pitchforks,
and my dogs cowered in the woods.
Surely they were the cloven hooves of the Devil!
Some neighbours had other theories:
shackles from the mooring ropes of a balloon,
badgers, rats, otters, cats, swans and mice,
kangaroos, escaped from a private zoo,
mass hysteria on various different animals’ prints,
hoaxers having a joke…
But no one ever found out for sure.
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