The rock apparently imprinted by the devil’s cloven hoof really existed in Martense’ Lane, in what is now the Flatbush section of Brooklyn.  Alas for the curious, though: The rock, together with much of the land around it, was destroyed by the onset of early nineteenth-century progress. And while Greater New York might not be able to boast such dramatically diabolical landmarks as the Devil’s Tower in Wyoming (familiar to anyone who has seen the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind), the devil did manage to leave his mark in many other spots in the New York vicinity.  His hoofprints are still to be seen (by the fanciful, at least) on Devil’s Rock, a boulder lying off Orient Point on Long Island, and he’s given his name, at least, to such areas as Spuyten Duyvel (translated variously as “to spite the devil” or as “spouting devil”), which has its own diabolical legend about the drowning by Satan of an arrogant (or, in some more romantic versions, amorous) Dutchman who insisted on trying to swim those dangerous currents between Manhattan and the Bronx on—of course—the Sabbath.

Josepha Sherman is a fiction writer with a particular interest in comparative myth and folklore. Her writing credits include two novels based on Slavic folklore—The Shining Falcon (Avon, 1989) and The Deathless (Avon, due out 1990)—juvenile fiction, numerous short stories, and poetry.