The Mowing-Devil: or, Strange News out of Hartford-shire is the title of an English woodcutpamphlet published in 1678.
The pamphlet tells of a farmer who, refusing to pay the price demanded by a labourer to mow his field, swore that he would rather that the Devil mowed it instead.
According to the pamphlet, that night his field appeared to be in flame. The next morning, the field was found to be perfectly mowed – unnaturally perfect, in fact.
This pamphlet, and the accompanying illustration, is often cited as among the first recorded cases of crop circles by cereologists
