It's that time again!

Time for the Wheel of Morality? (If you don't know, look it up. It's worth it. If you're seven.)

Noooo... it's time to dress up and beg for candy! You're forty-seven, you say? Do it anyway! And scare the children while you're at it. Don't hold back: blood, guts, chainsaws, human-shaped things hanging from trees... Nothing says good, wholesome, Halloween fun like a five digit therapy bill.

That's right children, it's Halloween. Beggars' Night. All-Hallow's-Eve. Samhain. Rumoured to be the second-largest retail holiday in America (not true, but a good story, anyway). The Devil's holiday, say some, more fundamentally-minded than others.

I live in the Bible-Belt South, in the US, so I hear that claim rather more often than I otherwise might. Having a personality best described as "Burtonesque", I find this at once bemusing and entertaining. I also happen to adore the holiday, whether or not I risk eternal perdition for it. In honor of the night, therefore, and that particularly narrow view of it, I invite you to take a brief tour of Devil-related places, potentially stumbling across satanic influences, old gravestones, empty beer cans (read on for details) and, quite possibly, future column material.

The Devil's Stuff:

Devil's Tower in Wyoming is a massive extrusion of rock near the Black Hills, and is not connected with the Christian devil as directly as some places, but there are a number of interesting stories attached to it, including a claim that there is treasure beneath it. The legend says a group of Native American men discovered a passageway beneath it while hunting in the area, and ventured into the cave. The passageway led deep beneath the tower, eventually emerging into a larger cavern that contained a rather startling amount of gold. Having nothing to carry it back with them, the hunters left it there, but never managed to return to retrieve it. Despite the fact that the Tower's igneous composition is particularly poor for cave-formation, the legend persists (and is likely aided by the fact that the nearby Black Hills are honeycombed with the things, as well as... er, gold. Surprised, anyone?).

The Devil's Chair in Shropshire (an English county, for the confused) is part of a rocky hill called the Stiperstones. The Chair itself is the largest and best known outcropping. There are a multiplicity of stories surrounding the tor. One day the Devil was carrying an apronful of stones across England, and sat down to rest on the rock. When he stood up again to go on, his apron string broke, and the stones he was carrying scattered. The Devil roundly cursed them, and the smell of brimstone there lingers to this day. Another legend states that if the Stiperstones ever sink into the earth, England will be ruined. In the hopes of accomplishing this, the Devil goes and sits in his chair at the top, thinking that perhaps his weight will push the stones back down into the ground. A less well-known addendum to the tale claims that every night, on Halloween, all the ghosts in Shropshire and the surrounding area gather there to choose their king. It's further claimed that if anyone sits in the Devil's Chair, a thunderstorm immeditely arises. In a country notorious for its rain and grey weather, that's a startling claim indeed. They're simply so rare.

The Devil's Chair in Guthrie Center, Iowa, is a cement-cast chair located in Union Cemetery. It's situated between two graves and is unmarked as belonging to either. Local legend attaches bad luck to it, intimating that to sit in the chair courts that bad luck for oneself. While the cemetery itself was established as a private burial ground in 1885, the legend of the chair only goes back for approximately thirty years.

Cassadaga, Florida, is proud of its Devil's Chair. The town has a reputation as a haven for occultists, mediums and other spiritualist sorts, and a cemetery between Cassadaga and Saint Helen has, by one of its graves, a brick-and-mortar armchair. Not particularly cozy, I suspect, but if one's used to parking one's tail on brimstone, it may indeed be the La-Z-Boy of infernal decor. Certainly local legend perpetuates the Devil-as-good-ol'-boy image: one of the stories insists that if you leave an unopened can of beer on the chair, it will be empty by morning. Accounts vary; in some of them, the can's opened, in others, the beer is simply gone, like magic, through the unopened top. Furthermore, if you yourself sit in the chair, you run the chance of having a heart-to-heart with the Prince of Darkness, who is rumoured to show up (and, presumably, chat up) anyone who dares to wait for him there.

Peck Cemetery, near Cerro Gordo, Illinois, has a Devil's Chair of its own. This one was supposedly erected by satanists, to give the devil a place to sit and observe their antics after they'd summoned him. (Reports are mum on whether or not he enjoyed a cold beer during the show.) There are a string of legends surrounding it, including that anyone who has dared to sit in the chair has died within a year thereafter. Supposedly, it's always several degrees colder in the cemetery, and people who have ventured there at night have been driven away by robe-wearing figures.

The Devil's Tramping Ground is a barren circle of land in central North Carolina. Roughly forty feet in diameter, it's rumoured to be the place where the Devil appears to ponder over his malevolent plots, pacing around and around in a circle where, as a result, nothing will grow. Animals are said to avoid the place, and items left overnight are, according to legend, gone by morning. I intend to test the veracity of that claim: sometime in the next couple of weeks, I shall mount an expedition to the spot, hopefully to spend the weekend. I doubt I will camp at the site. I have the feeling there is more danger from county sheriffs than supernatural entities, but I've no real desire to run afoul of either. I will, however, leave something in the ring and go back the next day for a fact-verification and photo-op, probably involving pith helmets. They're essential for expedition-mounting, you see. I may take along my dog, but as he is the most cowardly creature on God's green earth, he probably makes for a poor control specimen. Details at eleven! Or... er, well, in a couple of weeks.

I'm always on the lookout for the strange, odd, bizarre, bewildering, unexplained and blatantly paranormal. If you've heard about or experienced something that you feel fits those criteria, please feel free to comment here. I can't promise fame and fortune, but if your story catches my interest (and offers enough material to appropriately pad a column), I can offer ten seconds of dubious glory here at Firefox.org.