Cloven Country: The Devil and the English Landscape

by Jeremy Harte

Now in paperback, an exploration of the myths of England’s deceptively bucolic rolling hills and country lanes believed to be created and shaped by the Dark Lord himself.
 
According to legend, the English landscape—so calm on the surface—is really the Devil’s work. Cloven Country tells of rocks hurled into place and valleys carved out by infernal labor. The Devil’s hideous strength laid down great roads in one night and left scars everywhere as the hard stone melted like wax under those burning feet. With roots in medieval folklore of giants and spirits, this is not the Satan of prayer, but a clumsy ogre, easily fooled by humankind. When a smart cobbler or cunning young wife outwitted him, they struck a blow for the underdog. Only the wicked squire and grasping merchant were beyond redemption, carried off by a black huntsman in the storm. Cloven Country offers a fascinating panorama of these decidedly sinister English tales.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Folklore, Mythology, British Literature, Religion, Adult

296 pages, Paperback

Published October 23, 2023

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

If you're interested in this kind of thing, this is a very entertaining read on Devil myths in the English landscape, talking a lot about how folklore is invented and adapted and spread, how older myths and stories interset with religion, and how easily gentlemen antiquarians got the mickey taken out of them by locals, lol. Lots of good stories and some funny lines.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the battle of good versus evil, personified by God and the Devil, I find the latter to be the more interesting character. God, languidly playing finger-bump with naked Adam, is intentionally aloof, letting Man decide his own destiny. Oh, he has his vengeful side but, frankly, it's been a while since we've had to build an ark.

But the Devil is a frequent, if not constant, presence. He's the one who tells me to hurry, that I could save time by pulling my sweatshirt off as I'm running up the stairs, and I hear him chortle as I rearrange my nose. He says things like Have another drink and Nobody's watching and Do it! Do it! Do it! That's the Devil as stinker, but the Devil rides a spectrum. The Rolling Stones knew he popped up at big events, always getting Man to do his dirty work. After all, it was you and me. Even now, you can't see him sitting behind Putin, but he's there. There's also the Faustian Devil, when Man signs away his soul. That's as dark as life gets.

It's a wide spectrum, and thus the Devil takes many forms, not always hideous. He's useful, too, in all his guises, for us humans. He's a default explanation for the inexplicable, as well as a convenient excuse. The Devil made me do it.

The Devil is a perfect character for a storyteller. And so they've come down to us: repeated, amended, borrowed, plausible only to the gullible; yet, entertaining always. They are like the Irishman's old hammer, which had been in the family for generations but with three new heads fitted to it and five different handles.

That was Jeremy Harte just then speaking in italics. He's written this wonderful book, a collective of folklore about how the Devil is responsible for things we see in the English landscape. You can tell these places by their names: The Devil's Chapel, The Devil's Elbow, The Devil's Arrow, The Devil's Dyke, The Devil's Jumps, The Devil's Chair.

I won't repeat the stories here (they take too long to tell) except to say that if you see some cluster of large rocks (think Stonehenge) it's probably because the Devil was on his way to destroy a church, carrying the rocks in his apron, when his apron breaks and the rocks land in otherwise inexplicable fashion.

In most of the stories, the Devil is outwitted by mortal man or woman. And if I was advising him, I'd tell him to find a way to conceal his hoofs. They're a dead giveaway.

There's a spectrum to the stories, though. While most have a relatively happy ending, some are chilling, even as we know better.

Scared yet? Get a dog: there was a long-standing tradition that a spayed bitch kept in the house would ward off ghosts and other presences of the night. Because she was a female and yet could not bear pups, she was a living contradiction, a little uncanny, however loyal she might be--and so a natural guardian for boundaries between one world and another.

And now with a crack of lightning and a sulfuric smell, adieu, and please take care of my rocks, my ditch, my chair, my quoits, my frying pan, my leap and lapstone, my garden, green and grove. See you around.

[Hon Lady Selene · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this well enough, but:

"Leave Brighton's urban growth behind, cross the A27 on the outskirts of town and suddenly you are on unbroken downland."

but one had to be there. That's how this book reads, like one really had to be there - it's a dry read for someone who's never actively visited these spots and cannot place themselves at location to fully appreciate the scope of Harte's research.

For example, I had the pleasure of visiting Silbury Hill on two separate trips, once when the sun was shining and once when it flooded - a rare occasion and a sight to be cherished - so it was great reading about it, bonus points for mentioning Aubrey & Stuckeley with their quest in deciphering the secrets of the Standing Stones.

But the way this book was written, all is lost on someone who hasn't visited Avebury and doesn't know how sparkly is the chalk path in the sun or how elevated are the valleys Or how many standing stones were lost (+500) and then... one can't quite wrap their mind around the fact that the Devil gets involved in Architecture only around the 14th century when England had entirely converted to Christianity.

Before that, there were Giants.

Witch-Giantesses in particular, filling their aprons with stones to throw at their husbands during an argument but the apron-string breaks and the rocks fall on moors and in the valleys. The legends are always the same in the 16th century, either about the Welsh witch Arffedogaid or the Irish Cailleach, but never the Devil.

In the early 1800s the Devil would replace these Witch-Giantesses in moulding the architectural landscape, breaking his apron-strings at Aberystwyth, scrapping mud off his boots to create Thetford Castle Hill or throwing dirt from a clogged plough that made Scutchamer Knob.

"One day the Devil,
having nothing to do,
Built a great hedge
from Lerryn to Looe."

(- goes the old Cornish saying.)

As if the Devil
had nothing better to do.

[Andy Weston · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has its moments.. and then again, it has some much duller moments.

From all the research Harte has done, there aren't enough of the snippets of folklore collected to entertain for the 250 odd pages.

At one of its finest moments, and towards the end of the book he discusses how historically it was frowned upon to do pretty much anything on a Sunday, and how in various parts of the country stories of the Devil taking punitive measures against those intent of enjoying themselves, were common.

At North Leigh, between Witney and Woodstock, their was a cricket match on the village green one Sunday. A batsman was in for the visiting side, a stranger to all, but a really outstanding player, and while the bowler was trying to figure out how to bowl to him, the stranger exploded in a puff of smoke.

And,

At Crawshawbooth near Burnley, there was a football match on a Sunday when an unexpectedly powerful player joined the game as replacement for an injured player. One shot at the ball and it disappeared into the sky in a flash of fire, along with the strange player, and that was the end of the game.

Before beginning this I had considered any Devil-related features on the landscapes that I know well.
The most significant for me, is Hell Gill and Devil’s Bridge in the Dales, leading into Wensleydale - and the Devil's Bridge in Kirby Lonsdale.

I led many groups of 13 year olds to Hell Gill on 3 day camping trips, for a while it was 6 trips every summer. After a morning of more sedate problem-solving exercises, this was the highlight of their trip, a journey on foot, by swimming and swinging fixed rope, down the gorge. Something that would most likely not be allowed by today’s more strict health and safety guidelines. If we were unlucky, which was frequent, the farmer would come out and charge us £1 a head to be on his land.
But the name of the place resulted in the stories I told before and after. Many of the kids then, still recall them these days.

By chance, it’s actually the first landscape Harte refers to in this book, along with a third Devil's Bridge in the Dales.
I han't realised satanic legend had such a presence here..
If only I’d known of this 25 years ago.. though my own stories weren’t too bad..

Hopefully the rest of the book lives up to the opening chapter..

[Jay Rothermel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cloven Country is a delightful history of the devil in English folk life. Jeremy Harte's study is detailed, but with a light touch. The landscape has never looked weirder.

[Electric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great mix of folk lore from England regarding the devil and structural analysis of those tales. The real landmarks are not as important to the enjoyment as I can attest as somebody who lives in the mainland. Now I would just wish that there was something similar for Austria.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

loved finding out that, as a character in old folklore, the devil is surprisingly playful, chaotic and accident-prone. He’s always dropping rocks, snapping his apron strings (!) or moving churches to the tops of hills.
The locals often outwit him before anything truly evil happens and he vanishes ~pfft! ~ in a cloud of sulphur

[Fionnuala · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always wondered why so much in this country is named after the Devil. Growing up, I was surrounded by landmarks and places that were known as the Devil's this-and-that, and indeed I live down the road from another such place now. Of course, asking around, there was always an accompanying story: this is where the Devil roams around instead of bothering the crops, this is where the Devil preaches his sermons... even a nearby old munitions factory is named after him. It was only until I read this book that I realised I barely wondered about it at all. It's so normal to be surrounded by such names that I genuinely took it for granted. I just assumed the Devil was a busy guy.

This book does an incredible and highly entertaining job of illustrating the folklore behind these many places, as well as unravelling the places where myth and folklore and religion have got their wires crossed. It traces back the history of these places and stories and, very often, establishes them in a solid timeline, and then further illustrates the older stories that have or may have been adapted. It's genuinely amusing in many places -- in folklore, the Devil is very often not the fiend we see presented in religious literature, but a bumbling foe outsmarted by the wits of the ordinary folk -- though there are still some stories that illustrate his darker side, and that are genuinely quite unnerving.

I found the earlier chapters a little slow, but the book quickly picked up and soon I was racing through it. Harte does a good job summarising the folklore and telling the story without getting bogged down in different versions, or trying to tie everything together; it's an impressive piece of work, considering the slippery nature of folklore. He's also done a good job of pinning these stories down, sometimes to the very year or person, and in uncovering stories that have few or no equivalent. Despite the fact that some of these stories can be well-traced, they don't lose the fun of folklore, and always retain their almost fairy tale-like enjoyment.

It might be strange to say about a book concerning the Devil, but it's a lot of fun and often light-hearted. If you want to indulge in some spookier reads but you don't want things getting too dark, this would be perfect.

[Josh Murphie · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read, if very slow at points. Felt like it was very much missing an overall narrative to keep it flowing, and you’d have a really engaging story or theme followed by “the devil liked chucking rocks” for 40 pages.

[Ana Moth · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a wonderful book! Harte delves into the folklore surrounding diabolical place names with warmth and wit. A very enjoyable read.

[Elizabeth Judd Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A look at the Devil in English folklore, with many stories told. Most interesting, perhaps, is how new many of these stories actually are—the origins of the stories are also discussed.

[Tim Pendry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is what popular folklore studies should be - learned and yet readable. Jeremy Harte takes all the topographical references to the devil in England (with an occasional nod to Wales) and creates a narrative that gives us profound insight into traditional English culture and history.

Thematically he moves us from tales of a stupid and outwitted Devil which are just recastings of much older giant or fairy lore through increasing fear and anxiety to culminate in the sinister Hounds of Hell motif which appears to be drawn from German romanticism.

The brief comparison with Celtic stories is instructive because the Welsh tradition managed to avoid the early modern emphasis on the Devil and so retained forms of the same stories as the English with an older medieval cast of characters.

And that is the point of the book - to demonstrate just how fluid folklore can be and how it gets shaped by culture and society, appropriates the past and literary influences (much as country dance is often 'debased' aristocratic dance) and continues to evolve.

What folklore is not is some fixed popular culture marking out some timeless and ancient division from the culture of some oppressing elite nor is it some atavistic survival of ancient pagan ways although traces of older Celtic and Nordic memes may sometimes be identified.

Many Devil place names are of surprisingly recent origin, the creation of entrepreneurial indigenes exploiting the narrative desires of midle class tourists and re-arranging existing non-devilish local stories to appeal to their audience's sense of the horrible or simply to entertain for a penny.

Folklore is intimately connected to trade and travel. The Netflix of the early modern period was the chapbook. These could spread memes widely and feed off each other. Heroes of Devil tales were often from the partially itinerant class that could spread stories in a community, men such as cobblers.

If there is a decisive shift in the Devil tale, it is in the early modern era when a whole range of local boggars, demons, giants and malignant fae become centralised (like the centralised state) as the Devil, reflecting the centralisation of salvation away from a multitude of Catholic saints and devils.

The local devil becomes the Devil and this Devil can become truly dangerous but can also used as a method of social control in the telling of tales, especially control of women and social outliers. Harte has a whole chapter on the ambiguity of devil tales involving women.

Perhaps the most unnerving tales are not those of Hell's Hounds chasing men across Bodmin Moor (bad and selfish gentry are also targets of devil tales which, like fairy tales, can have 'moral purpose) but the use of the Devil to re-envision those lightning strikes on churches that kill the faithful.

Lightning strikes on the highest point of a village could wreak serious damage to fabric but also to people if a service was being taken at the time. The choice between blaming God (socially dangerous) and one's own sinfulness could be evaded by actually seeing (literally) the Devil in the act.

But folklore does not stand still, early modern rural and socially controlling obscurantism gets vectored through literary accounts and, of course, whoever writes the story tends to own the story. Literary types are not averse to a bit of creative invention. They are, by nature, noble liars.

As literacy advances so the Devil tale advances. Places get re-named for him to advance a story rather than to reflect local 'reality'. We have mentioned tourists creating the tales they wanted to hear simply by being present in the right place at the right time (and then reporting them as 'true').

Matters go further when literary types find cause to invent and even transfer ideas and tropes from overseas - such as the German romantic tale that was so influential during the Gothick era. Places can then get given to the Devil because the tale needs an English location.

Sometimes the process becomes circular. An invented use of the Devil - whether early modern or later romantic - becomes so embedded in a community that a later folklorist hears the tale, ascribes it to a canon and assumes a great past (though folklorists have got wise to this now).

Stories also get transmuted constantly according to who is telling the tale and to whom. The same story told against one village may get garbled by that village to be told against the village that told it first. Garbling and multiple versions are normal.

This is why folklore is so rich and so slippery. It is a temporal phenomenon with most of it being lost as people die and forget, requiring new inventions and transcriptions that, once written down, may save the tales but denies their essence by doing so in canonical and so false form.

There are some 'big moments' - the emergence of the Protestant revolution and the crushing of Catholic ways of seeing, the itineracy of the working class and traders, the rise of a travelling middle class eager for sensation, the emergence of folkorists as a class - but these do not change the picture.

Folklore would appear to be a sea of interconnecting memes that construct popular culture with its own distinguishing mark being that there is no individual 'auteur' (even if some middle class folklorists briefly threatened to take that role) but only a socially created soup of linked conceptions.

I would argue that most of our contemporary media is, in fact, folklore on these terms - a similar soup of interconnecting memes disconnected from 'scientific' reality, serving some social purpose that no part of it truly understands or can control, and creating its own 'felt' reality.

An excellent book which manages to combine a scholarly approach with absolute readability and Harte's ability to tell a good folk story along traditional lines. His approach remains affectionate if sometimes amused. The reader too will be both amused and educated.

[Afke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cloven Country

A book specifically about the devil in relation to the English landscapes and the stories told about that all over the country.

I enjoyed this book very much. The writing style is refreshing and humorous at times. I liked the fact that for every chapter, which revolve around a central theme/story, parallel stories were gathered from all over the country, sometimes from other parts of the British Isles or similar stories in mainland Europe.

Many of the included stories are told and retold beautifully and then their variants discussed. It's very interesting to read how folklore blends with literature at times and following the threads of what is a 'real' folk story and what is 'made up' tangle and become lost in the mists of time.

People will take a story they fancy and mold and shape it until it fits their environment and the shapes these stories therefore take depend on that environment, it is fascinating!

All-in-all a very lovely read and I particularly love the index of place names at the back of the book, this will come in very handy on my next travels to England!

[Alison C · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Cloven Country” explores the folklore of the English countryside and the devil’s place in it. Interestingly, much of the folklore discussed didn’t originally feature the devil at all, but rather told stories about giants and sprites and the like; the Christian devil doesn’t come into it until the Middle Ages and even then, most the the tales told here were gathered during the 18th and 19th Centuries and can be seen as enthusiasms of those eras. I studied folklore at one time, and found this to be a useful addition to the literature, albeit very *very* specific to the British Isles. It is also astounding how many small villages there are in Britain, given how small a geographical area it covers! Mr. Harte’s best insight is noted at the very end of the book, when he writes that “(f)olklore is not a tree but a lattice; stories are continually crossing over and exchanging motifs with each other, developing new variants or dying out, acquiring fresh heroes and forgetting old ones.” Indeed, sir, indeed. Recommended for those interested in folklore and its development.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Harte weaves together history, myth, landscape, and belief with a storyteller’s ease and a researcher’s precision. The book moves effortlessly through counties, legends, and centuries, showing how the Devil became an inseparable part of England’s hills, valleys, ruins, and rural memory.

What I loved most is Harte’s sensitivity to place: each story feels rooted, textured, and alive. He doesn’t sensationalise the folklore but treats it as part of the lived experience of ordinary people—shepherds, travellers, farmers, parishioners—whose landscapes were thick with meaning.

Harte’s writing strikes a rare balance: academically robust yet absorbing, lyrical yet grounded. His observations on how Satan became a moral, narrative, and geographical force in English culture are genuinely illuminating.

For anyone interested in English folklore, the supernatural, or the strange beauty of rural myth, Cloven Country is essential reading. It’s thoughtful, evocative, and quietly profound—a book that lingers like a shadow on an old stone bridge.

[Andrew Bearden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not scholarly enough to be educational and not engaging enough to be pop history. Sort of wavering in that middle territory of a folk tale enthusiast who got a passion project published. The concept is interesting, as well as the evolution of the stories, but the narrative is too meandering...a bit like a granddad with an interesting story that takes too many tangents to enjoy or follow cohesively. Could have used an editor to streamline and organize the thoughts a bit more succinctly. Also, if you are not from Blighty good luck with the geography. I know a fair amount of regions in Great Britain but the parish and county names are thrown out rapid-fire and I would have preferred maps to small black and white photos of some of the places. Best read in small bits rather than in long sittings, as evidenced by the nine months it took me to finish 247 pages.

[Adam(ChaosOfCold) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely rounded up.

Cloven Country is at its core a distillation of the hoof prints left on the English landscape over the centuries. It seeks to unify and contrast local folktales whilst exploring the origins, variations and adaptions made over time.

The issue is that this often comes across as intensely dry - for a book centred around a mischievous malcontent such as the devil there’s a distinct lack of wit in the writing. The stories shared are the most interesting but the dissections that follow frequently come across as formulaic or repetitive.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s a lot to be learned from Cloven Country. But there’s a lot that could have been slimmed down.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utterly wonderful telling of a multitude of stories about the devil within British folklore. The research must have taken years. Mr Harte devotes a lot of space to explaining the similarities to different stories across the country, and how that may have happened, which is very interesting. How did certain themes come about? Why was the devil such a fool sometimes? Why did he set the innocent impossible tasks? Why was he in turn tricked in the way he was?
Fascinating, and yet highly readable.
Recommend.

[Martin Castle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have never read a book on English folklore but this title grabbed my attention and I wasn’t disappointed. The writing style, a bit tongue in cheek at times as well as the exceptional level of detail makes for a great read with stories that will make you smile and laugh as to how the devil has impacted the English countryside. You will never think the same again about devil related place names!! Great read.

[Magdalena Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love this cover and the premise was great - the devil is everywhere and in everything around us! This book is obviously very well researched but I found the writing a bit overwhelming and/or dull at times. There’s just so much description of the landscape, which can be hard to follow, but then also a ton of folktales which I very much enjoyed. Also, the chapters got way better towards the end when we get to the Huntsman, the mention of witches and hell hounds.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's not a lot of narrative arc, so I don't recommend reading it all in a few days. Treat it more as a reference book. However, it's a great collection of devil-related folk tales. Also, the photos really enhance the experience. You can envision the stories taking place in many of the English scenes sprinkled throughout the pages.

[Paul Weatherhead · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book of devilish folklore and its relation to the English landscape. What surprised me was that many of the stories of the Devil dropping piles of stones here or there or hurling monoliths at dissolute neighbouring towns were of fairly recent origin and may have been recycled for the entertainment of tourists!

[Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent research and well written

[Helen Firminger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Masterly exploration of storytellers building the landscape and how that naughty devil finds his way in.

[Abigail Ghent · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really great folklore and tales but some dull moments in between.

[James Rhodes · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brilliantly researched and often insightful collection of thematic analysis focussing on the various reinterpretations of the devil in British folklore. As such, a great many of the stories are told as fragment or summary and take a second place to speculation on their meaning or development.

If Harte wants to put together a collection of retellings instead, I would read in a heartbeat. There are moments when we get fuller narratives and are allowed to delight in the tricks and enduring themes that make this an interesting topic (the taylor and his wife, for instance). These moments are well told and you get a better sense of analysis when you have been allowed to enjoy the stories.

But, for the most part, the wonder and mystery are most in fabric of the academic style.

That said, this is a veritable treasure trove for anyone with an interest in British folklore, and you should own it for the index alone.