The Devil’s Fingers

In Britain, there are many bits of landscape named after the Devil. There’s usually a story to go with it. Other landscape features not called after Satan may also have stories that involve him. Here he threw some rocks at a giant. This hill is a pile of shoes that were part of a massive bluff to keep him out of town. This rather phallic outcropping is… well, you get the idea.

Hopeless Maine has a cluster of rocks called The Devil’s Fingers. These rocks form a sort-of island, not very far out to sea. It’s close enough to the main island that, during the ill-fated attempt to build a bridge between Hopeless and the mainland, a bridge actually got this far. You can read more about that here – https://hopelessvendetta.wordpress.com/2010/07/02/the-devils-fingers/

Over here is a story about the civic band playing on a platform when the bridge reached The Devil’s Fingers – https://hopelessvendetta.wordpress.com/2010/07/11/bridging-the-divide/

It’s also a spot where mermaids are especially likely to show up – more here – https://hopelessvendetta.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/disaster-narrowly-avoided/

If you look at the rock formation, it’s obvious why the locals saw fit to call it the fingers. As to why it’s The Devil’s fingers…. there is a tale…

When people first came to live on Hopeless Maine, a long time ago, the Devil got wind of the island. Now, being the Prince of Darkness, ruler of Hell and other equally unlovely titles and job descriptions, Satan feels possessive when it comes to horrible things. One day, he heard the colony of monks praying from Hopeless to their God. Now, the monks hadn’t intended to set up home here, they had been looking for a remote and spiritual island, wanting to emulate Iona, but they’d got horribly lost, and then horribly shipwrecked. Forced to remain on the island, they set up a distillery and got on with praying.

So imagine all these lost monks, trying to find something to make whiskey out of in this inhospitable land, and praying to God for a decent grain crop, and the Devil hears them. And the Devil thinks to himself that he’ll go over to this miserable island for a look. He likes tormenting monks by making small mammals and landscape features look like sexy women. So the Devil heads off towards Hopeless. As he gets nearer and can see the island, he realises it’s the sort of horrible place he particularly loves, and feels angry because he didn’t make it, and it isn’t his, and he wants it.

He gets even closer, and he can see all the things with eyes living in the mist, and he wants to grab this whole place and take it down to Hell and use it to torment the damned. You can get bored with fiery pits after a few thousand years, trust me on this.

Just as the Devil reaches out to grab the island, something happens. Something awful and nameless and terrifying rises up to meet the advancing Devil, and the Devil falls back into the sea, cold stone dead, with just his fingers sticking out. He lies there to this very day. And whatever it is that killed Satan of the coast of Hopeless, well, people say it’s still here, and you’d best hope that’s all you ever find out about it.

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