REMEMBER, remember the 5th of November. Not for bonfires or fireworks in Shebbear — but to turn the ‘Devil’s Stone’ to ensure the safety of the village for another year.

Turning the stone is an ancient ceremony. Nobody knows when it dates back to.

Every November 5, the bell ringers turn the stone to commemorate the story that lies behind it — the throwing out of the Devil from Heaven by the Archangel Michael — the church in Shebbear is named St Michael after him.

The Rev Martin Warren said the ceremony ‘goes back into the depths of time’ and is reported to be ‘the oldest folk ceremony in Europe’.

He said: “It matters to Shebbear hugely. We don’t have bonfires or fireworks, we turn the stone!”

On Sunday, Mr Warren led the bell ringers and told the story before the stone was turned. This is said to ensure the Devil is ‘crushed’ beneath it. The bells are rung before the ceremony to ward off unpleasant spirits.

Mr Warren said the stone is a ‘glacial moraine’ — “It’s out of place,” he said. “The geology of the stone is not of the area.”

One theory online is that it may have been an altar stone brought by a pagan cult, in the way that the Druids brought stones from Wales to Stonehenge in Wiltshire, though there is no evidence for this. Another is that it was dropped by the Devil himself when he was cast out of heaven by St Michael.

Finally, there is the theory that it was quarried as the foundation stone for Hanscott Church nearby and was moved to Shebbear by the Devil or some supernatural force, and that every time it was retrieved, it mysteriously turned up at Shebbear again, so was finally left there.

It is said that the turning was neglected once in the First World War, when misfortune immediately descended on the village. Again, in 1940, when most of the ablebodied men were away they failed to turn the stone and the war news was said to suddenly become so threatening that is unlikely that turning the stone will be missed again.