In some West African countries you can still find shrines to the trickster god Legba. These are often placed at crossroads. Early Christian missionaries felt that Legba was, in fact, an African form of the devil. And so began an association between the devil and crossroad sites.

Europeans also had beliefs that crossrodas were dangerous places. The spirits of the dead could reside in such places and so people would try to avoid visiting such places after dark. In fact, Gypsies would often camp by crossroads because they actually felt safe there from local people, who were often anti-gypsy and who would otherwise attack their camps to send them on their way.