The fight is said to have been long and desperate. When the Devil was finally forced to fly, he pushed off from the rock with enough force to leave the print, headed for Alderney, and touched down on the Brayes rocks on the way, where similar cloven marks were said to be visible. Whether he got beyond Alderney, or "settled down quietly in that island", MacCulloch wrote, "is a point on which the narrators of the tradition are by no means agreed."
MacCulloch toyed with the idea that the forgotten saint was St Patrick, given the name Patris, before admitting that a Vale family called Patris almost certainly gave the hougue its name. Another Guernsey legend does bring St Patrick to the island: he met St George at the well in the Castel, filled his wallet with Guernsey's toads and snakes, and emptied it on Jersey.
Visit Guernsey and Island Families both still tell the story of the unknown saint banishing the Devil, and say the hoofprint rock has a twin on Alderney where he landed. Quarrying has changed this coast a great deal since the 1850s, and the exact rock may not survive. The map point is placed at Fontenelle Bay and is approximate.
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