Mowing-Devil

The Mowing-Devil: or, Strange News out of Hartford-shire is the title of an English woodcut pamphlet published in 1678.

It narrates a tale of Satan mowing a field in Hertfordshire, and presents itself as reporting the news.

[1] Crop circle researcher Jim Schnabel does not consider it to be a historical precedent because it describes the stalks as being cut, while modern crop circles involve the wheat, barley or, less commonly, other plants[2] being bent.

Being a True Relation of a Farmer, who Bargaining with a poor Mower, about the Cutting down Three Half Acres of Oats upon the Mower’s asking too much, the Farmer ſwore, ‘That the Devil ſhould Mow it, rather than He.’ And lo it fell out, that that very Night, the Crop of Oats ſhew’d as if it had been all of a Flame, but next Morning appear’d ſo neatly Mow’d by the Devil, or ſome Infernal Spirit, that no Mortal Man was able to do the like.

Alſo, How the ſaid Oats ly now in the Field, and the Owner has not Power to fetch them away.