The Devil’s Stone: Shebbear’s Ritual to Keep Evil Away | Thursday Thrills

0:01 Imagine yourself in a village square after dark. The church bells have been ringing, and a crowd has gathered around a boulder beneath an oak. People are carrying crowbars. They work the iron underneath the stone. You can see what they're trying to do. They're going to turn it over, which seems like a lot of trouble for a rock. Until somebody tells you why it has to happen, tonight, the devil is supposed to be underneath it. Now you're watching the bottom edge, waiting for the first little gap between the stone and the ground, and wondering whether, when that gap opens, you really want to be standing so very close. Thursday Thrills This is Thursday Thrills, a quick weekday ride into the creepy stories, haunted places, weird obsessions, and eerie little corners of the world worth talking about.

1:19 I'm Enrique Couto, and tonight we're heading to Shebier, England, where November 5th means turning the devil's stone. The village has kept that appointment for generations, even though the reason for it gets stranger with every telling. Halloween has just gone by, and you may already be missing the decorations. Well, keep your coat handy. There's a village in Devon with one more thing to take care of before we put all the scary stuff away. The stone lies near the entrance to St. Michael's Churchyard. Close by is the Devil's Stone Inn, which is wonderfully reassuring as a place to stop if you've arrived wondering whether you're in the right place.

2:13 The name is right on the pub. The boulder is just outside. You've found it. On November 5th, the church's bell ringers have a job down on the ground as well as up in the tower. The bells sound, the story gets told, and the stone gets rolled over with crowbars. The old promise is that doing this keeps misfortune away for another year. That's a pretty manageable arrangement with the supernatural. Put it on the calendar, bring some friends, remember some tools and crowbars. Of course, an annual job becomes a little less manageable when you start Asking what happens if nobody does it. We'll get to that. First, take another look at the stone. Because in one of the stories, it isn't simply something the devil left behind. It's what's holding him down. And once you've heard that, I suspect the place would be hard to see quite the same way again. You might visit on an ordinary afternoon with no crowd and nobody carrying tools. The stone would still be there. You'd then remember what someone said was underneath, and perhaps find yourself checking the edge before you walked past.

3:42 One local legend puts St. Michael and the Devil in a battle that ends with the Devil cast out of heaven. The stone comes down on him, and there he lays, pinned underneath. St. Michael's own church stands nearby. That gives the village quite a landmark. You could pass it on your way to meet somebody, the way you pass a bench or a bus stop. Except this particular piece of scenery is doing a very important job. I like how close that brings the danger. There isn't a long expedition into a forbidden cave. You don't need to discover a hidden door. The thing everyone knows about is right there, beside the churchyard. Another telling makes the devil rather less majestic.

4:40 He's fleeing the cold at nearby Northloo, carrying a stone and, well, he drops it so he can get away faster. Apparently, even the Prince of Darkness can discover he's dressed wrong for the season. That version leaves him free to go. It also leaves the villagers with the luggage. There's also a warning that he might be hiding underneath, and the stone must be turned to drive him out. Neglected and next year's crops could suffer. And I think a hiding place is almost worse than a prison. With a prison, you have some idea of where the trouble is. A hiding place means you've got to check it. You can stand there looking at the top of that boulder all afternoon, but you still haven't seen underneath. There's another story about how it arrived. and this one gives the devil an exhausting sense of humor. The stone was meant to help build a church in a neighboring village. People brought it where it was needed only for the devil to move it to Shibir during the night. They fetched it back.

6:03 He moved it again. Imagine having that job. You finish hauling a great lump of rock, go home and return to find an empty patch of ground Yesterday's work is waiting for you in another village. You could blame your neighbors the first time, but by the next morning you'd probably be checking whether anybody else had a sore back. In the legend, the struggle goes on until the people fetching it finally give up. The stone stays in Shebeer. I can understand that decision, honestly. At a certain point, just let him have the rock. But the yearly turning makes that surrender feel... unfinished. Nobody has to haul it back to the building site anymore. There's still a job waiting, every November. Now you've got a chore with a... deadline, and something unpleasant attached to missing it. Most of us already know how that feels without even adding a devil into the mix. The warning can follow you home. A burst pipe, a sick animal, an awful bit of news.

7:22 Once somebody's told you there's something you should have done, ordinary bad luck has somewhere else to point. And during the Second World War, an account from Shebeer says the appointment was missed. If you're enjoying this little trip into the dark, follow or subscribe to Weekly Spooky and share this episode with the friend who'd volunteer to look under the stone. Now, let's head back to Shebeer, where leaving it alone was about to become a lot harder than turning it. In 1939, wartime blackout restrictions interrupted the customs According to the village's vicar, A.H. Evans, November 5th passed without the stone being turned. Now, put yourself in the position of someone who had heard that warning all their life.

8:28 On their next trip through the square, there it is again. You could tell yourself the old stories are just nonsense. You could also spend the entire walk home wishing somebody had just... turned the damn thing. Evans says concerns for the village brought people back a few days later to finish the job. I think I'd have been relieved to see the crowbars en route. Whatever my opinions had been before supper I could discuss them you know safely after the rock was turned over. Back at the church there's something about those bells we haven't talked about yet. They're supposed to sound wrong. The customary ringing is deliberately discordant, a jangle meant to drive evil spirits away, so the people responsible for the church bells make a racket, then come down and deal with the stone. I appreciate the advanced warning. If there's something under there, give it every opportunity to leave before I have to get involved. Except, of course, I'd be standing outside while the bells were doing that, right beside its possible hiding place. Suddenly, the back of the crowd looks like an excellent spot to appreciate local traditions in my own way. then the ringing

10:02 stops the bell ringers are the ones who have to come out with the tools the same people who are making all that noise are about to get close enough to slide a bar underneath and there is one question i'd want to get out of the way before helping If the devil is pinned underneath this thing, why are we lifting it? Surely someone who's done it for years can explain that part to me. Longtime Turner Ron Ackland told the local paper he'd helped for 20 years and his father for 40. When it came to why the custom began, though, his answer was that nobody really knew. Well, I'd still trust him with the crowbar. I might just have a few more questions while he got to work.

10:56 For instance, if we're keeping something down, I would want to be quick about the turning. If we're flushing something out, I'd like to know which way it's expected to run. These feel like reasonable things to ask before you bend over and put your face near that gap. But the people who do this have a boulder to move and telling another story won't make it any lighter. Once the bars are in place, somebody has to start pushing. One visitor describes the turners working their crowbars underneath until the stone begins to rise. They bring it up, tip it over, and down it comes onto the grass, and things move underneath.

11:48 Little creatures scatter from the ground that was covered a moment before. Perfectly ordinary inhabitants of the underside of a rock suddenly having a very eventful evening. After wading through those bells and hearing those stories, I don't think I'd be at my best to identify small wildlife in the dark. Movement first, then sensible explanation can come a little later. The same visitor was told about a year when a rat emerged and startled the watchers. A rat. Under that particular stone. In front of that particular audience. I hope it appreciated the entrance. I like to believe I would have handled that with dignity. I'd also like someone else to stand the closest. And if I happened to move...

12:48 Very quickly toward the pub, that would simply be me making room for everybody to get a better view. The whole turning takes only a few minutes, then the bars can come away, the stone is down, and the job is finished for another year. The crowd can leave, the stone has to stay. That's the bit that would follow me home. I'd have watched it roll. I'd have seen the ground underneath. For tonight, that ought to settle things nicely. But next November, the bells are supposed to ring again.

13:30 Someone has to bring the tools again. Whatever protection the old story promises, one good look underneath doesn't last forever. This Thursday is November 5th. The traditional date of the she-bear's appointment with the Devil's Stone. It's a lovely thought for the week after Halloween. Somewhere there's still unfinished business beneath an old oak. If I could carry one moment home from that very square, it would be the instant before the stone goes over. The bars are underneath. The weight is beginning to shift. For just a moment, a thin, dark space opens where you couldn't see it before. That's where every version of the story meets. Whatever dropped the stone, whatever moved it, whatever might be hiding there. You're finally, you are finally about to get a look. I'm Enrique Couto.

14:40 Thanks for spending part of your Thursday with me. Enjoy the rest of your night. And if somebody needs a hand keeping the devil under a rock, remember, cheering from a reasonable distance also counts as helping. Come back tomorrow for more fear. Until then, lock your doors as if that will help.