Brittany, in northwest, is a land of breathtaking beauty, where the sea and land intertwine to create a unique and captivating landscape. Its charm lies in the diverse mix of rugged coastline, picturesque fishing villages, enchanting forests, and serene countryside. The coastline is a stunning sight to behold, with its dramatic cliffs, pristine sandy beaches, and idyllic hidden coves.

It was to one of these rugged coastlines near Brest that my friends and I went on an excursion. It was around September or October, 2000; the sky was overcast and it was cold. This wasn’t a tourist beach and there were no other people besides us. One of my friends recalled that many years ago, on a gloomy day and place just like this, a strange and frightening event took place.

It happened in the late 1980’s. He and a group of buddies went for an overnight excursion near a beach in this region. They borrowed a house owned by family friends. The property was by a small paved road; access to the beach was through a dirt road that went down an embankment. The property had a garden, and in the garden was a toolshed where they kept gardening equipment. The lock on the shed’s door was damaged. This was to play a significant part in what was about to unfold.

Late in the afternoon that day, while most of the group were in the house reading their books and playing Trivial Pursuit, one of the guys, Robert, decided to take a walk along the beach. He put on a jacket and walking shoes, and with hands in the pockets of the jacket took the road, turned into the dirt road, went down the embankment. It was a short walk to the abandoned beach. Except that, he found, he wasn’t alone.

At a distance, perhaps 100 meters, was a man walking in his direction; the man was alone. Robert smiled at the thought, “I might just make a friend today,” and continued normally towards the man.

As they got closer he noted more features. The man was wearing a faded black kabig, a kind of jacket made of heavy material like wool traditionally worn in the region. It had a boxy, oversized fit and had a high collar that was turned up to protect the neck from the cold. He wore a ribbed woolen cap, also faded. Focusing on the face, Robert guessed the man to be around his late 50’s.

When they were about 20 or 30 meters from each other he noticed that the man had been looking at him, expressionless he thought. He began to see more clearly the man’s eyes, unmoving, piercing. And they were piercing him.

As they got closer, Robert noticed that the man’s expression was not neutral. It was menacing. It was demented like nothing he had ever seen. And it was an intelligent look, as if they man knew exactly what he was going to do in the next few seconds.

It was then that Robert, for the first time, and not knowing why it took him so long, looked at the man’s feet. Except that he had no feet. In their place were a pair of goat’s hooves.

Looking back at his face Robert saw the man had begun to smile. He showed teeth. Not human, for he seemed to have twice the number of teeth, and his smile literally went from ear to ear like someone put a knife to both cheeks. The man was mouthing something.

But Robert did not want to know.

He turned around and ran. Back towards the house he ran. Certain as if he had eyes at the back of his head Robert knew the creature — for it was not a man — was giving chase. He ran like he had never run, his legs unfailingly strong, his shoes crunching the course sand like a Range Rover’s tires. He ran up the embankment, turned to the empty road, towards the house, the creature just behind him.

Robert saw the shed first, saw that the door was ajar. A voice in his head told him to run there. He made it, thrust himself inside, latched the door, braced it with his back, recited Hail Mary’s.

Then it came. A force immensely powerful struck the door. It shook the shed so hard that tools crashed to the floor. Robert bounced off the door but rebounded and held. Then the creature shrieked. It was very very angry, like a famished beast that had just lost its prey.

And then, all of a sudden, silence.

The next thing he heard were the sound of his friends running out of the house.

“What was that?”

“It’s no dog from Bretagne, putain!”

“It came from the shed!”

“You two, check the garden. You, check the road, and you, the beach. I’ll go with Pierre to check the shed.”

“F**k, man, where’s Robert?”

They found the shed locked from the inside. “Open up! Open up!” they pounded.

Robert unlatched the door. The man was dead pale.

“Robert, qu’est-ce qui s’est passé? You ok? What the f**k happened?”

The friends looked for the man who Robert said chased him to the shed. They made a thorough search of the property and of the road and down to the beach. Of the man they found nothing. But then —

“Pierre. Regarde. Là, sur la porte. C’est quoi ça? What is that?”.

“Putain, merde.“

On the door, burned in as if by a branding iron, were two, black marks: a goat’s cloven hooves.

Robert — now Father Robert, Catholic priest — is sometimes asked about this episode, which has never happened to anyone before or since. But he never likes talking about it. He says that his refusal to make a big thing of it is not out of fear. After all, some like the Cure of Ars, St Jean Marie Vianney, were sometimes physically harassed by the devil. But all, saint or not, are harassed spiritually.

The Devil, also known as the Ankou, plays a significant role in the folklore of Brittany. He is portrayed as a trickster, and his presence is felt in various legends and tales that have been passed down through generations. There is some basis to this.

“The devil is always present, always active; but he is most dangerous when he is invisible,” says Fr. Robert. “At the same time, I don’t want you to think — and I’m not even saying it was the devil — that unusual events like this are a normal part of the life of faith.”

(Q.C. 230411)