The logic behind the name is sound – it’s the point where the dangerous tides meet. Nice and simple, nothing too complicated, and even a not-so-subtle dash of folklore added by evoking the devil as that’s apparently synonymous with danger. Like calling it a danger point wouldn’t be synonymous with danger, right? Anyway!

I want something a bit scarier than logic – yes, logic can be scary, just take a look at this ~(P & ~ (Q v R) ) – and definitely something with a heavy weight of folklore, with a mist of the unexplained, hinting at why it’s the Devil’s Point and not the Danger Point. So, here’s my take on the origin of the name.

Once,

there was a small prosperous village in the area where today’s Plymouth stands, but then there was no Hoe Park, no beautiful vistas over the sea, no ships setting sail. – There was no sea at all! The land was flat with an occasional hill perched behind a few trees scattered around. But the soil was good for growing and so the village thrived albeit hidden away from numerous visitors.

One day a stranger came to the village. His voice was smooth, his charm bewitching and he spoke of the riches available to places that are not so tucked away as this village. The mayor’s eyes covered in mist of greed, when the stranger promised to the villagers that he could make this place the biggest port town in the region.

‘Not possible’ said many villagers, ‘we’re too far away from the sea’. But the stranger kept talking, kept convincing with a zestful gleam in his green eye, and kept close to the greedy mayor, who was his biggest supporter. And so, in a few days all but one villager decided to trust the stranger.

They were told to meet the stranger just outside the village gate at the next full moon. The only villager who wasn’t convinced was a fifty-year-old woman, who saw and heard all, or at least enough to doubt the eloquent stranger whose two differently coloured eyes made her shiver. She tried to warn the others, but they wouldn’t listen, even her own daughter took her two toddlers and went with the others.

The stranger waited for them as promised and as soon as they all gathered, he summoned unbelievable powers that turned the moon bright yellow and the sky red. The wind picked up, the ground shook, the villagers were scared. They started running away, but soon realised that they couldn’t move. Their feet were as heavy as stone, in fact, they started turning into stone.

The wise woman heard the screams and calls of despair and tried to run towards them to help, but the stranger reached out with his right arm, twisted his fingers, whispered a few words and suddenly her tiny house with a tiny garden was separated from the rest of the land. As the villagers turned to stone completely, a great roaring was heard coming from the pit between them and the wise woman’s tiny island. It was the sea. It howled like a new-born, its waves jumped up high like if boiled in a kettle, swirled around the stone-turned villagers, and finally settled with a massive gasp.

The stranger disappeared, keeping his promise of a great port town to come. The wise woman cried for weeks praying for the souls of those turned to stones and eventually she died of a broken heart. The seaweed covered the stones, some new arrivals settled where the village used to stand, and the story got forgotten.

And it’s only sometimes and only at the full moon that you can hear the cries of villagers trapped in the rocks and stones, you can hear their regrets of an unfair bargain in the wind as it blows across the Devil’s Point.

Below you can see photos of the villagers turned to stones 😉