One stormy night, in a tin-stamping mill at Botallack, miners gathered for their regular game of cards. The mill sat above a deep chasm in the cliff, the miners game was scored by the sound of waves booming aginst the cliffs below and the rain furiously lashing at the walls. Yet, huddled around their lamp they were warm and dry for a change, and laughed in good spirits as they played their rounds.
After four hands had been played there was a knock at the door of the mill. They welcomed the stranger in out of the rain and invited him to join their game. The enigmatic stranger spoke with an unusual accent and was not at all damp, despite coming in out of the deluge. But the miners were well on their way to drunk by now, having a few shots of gin each, so they did not question him as they should.
The man had the gift of the gab, and the gift of the cards, for he won every hand whilst regailing the miners with tales of the lands he had visited. They played on, drinking and laughing with the stranger, on the gin the miners became raucous in their revels. The whole night past them unoticed.
The light of dawn eventually lit up the windows with a golden glow illuminating the mysterious stranger in his seat. One by one the miners were struck sober by the sight of the man’s feet. They were the cloven hooves of the devil.
They still call that chasm in the cliff, Stamps an Jowle Zawn – “chasm of the devil’s stamps,” in Cornish. (Craig Weatherhill, Myths and Legends of Cornwall, 1994)
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