Hairy Hands

Incidents

Since around 1910, drivers and cyclists on the road between Postbridge and Two Bridges have reported strange accidents. Many said their vehicle suddenly jerked or swerved, pulling off the road as if something had grabbed the wheels and forced them from their control. Most victims hit a verge and survived, and these events were treated as local oddities. That changed in June 1921, when E.H. Helby, the medical officer for Dartmoor Prison, died after losing control of his motorcycle combination.

The two young daughters of the prison governor, riding in the sidecar, survived. A few weeks later, a coach driver lost control, throwing several passengers from their seats and injuring them. Then, on 26 August 1921, an army captain reported that invisible hands had seized him and forced his motorcycle off the road. This story was picked up by London newspapers and became known nationwide.

In Michael Williams’s book Supernatural Dartmoor, journalist and author Rufus Endle told of driving near Postbridge on an unspecified date when “a pair of hands gripped the driving wheel and I had to fight for control.” He avoided a crash, and the hands vanished as suddenly as they appeared. He asked Williams not to publish the account until after his death, fearing ridicule. Not all incidents involved moving vehicles.

In 1924, a woman camping on the moor with her husband reported seeing a hairy hand trying to enter her caravan at night. She said it withdrew after she made the sign of the Cross.

Explanations

Most variations of the legend of the Hairy Hands do not specify the origins of the hands or attribute to them any specific purpose, other than driving motorists off the road. A few local versions of the story attribute the hands to an unnamed man who died in an accident on the road. According to local sceptics, most of the accidents were caused by people who were unfamiliar with the area driving too fast down narrow country roads with high walled sides, resulting in them either losing control or misjudging the road and running off its edges. After the story appeared in the national press, several investigations were carried out into the road. It was eventually determined that the accidents were most likely due to the camber of the road's surface, which reached dangerous levels in places and was duly altered.

In the media

The legend was linked to witchcraft in the short play 'The Hairy Hand of Dartmoor' by Michael McStay, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 8 February 1999. The Hairy Hands were mentioned by Josh Widdicombe on "Monster Mash", an episode in Series M of panel show QI. Widdicombe again mentioned the story on series 2 episode 2 of comedy panel show Hypothetical, hosted with James Acaster, and on the 19 April 2019 episode of Have I Got a Bit More News for You and again on 28 February 2020 episode of The Last Leg.