A Book of Dartmoor: Second EditionBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
A Book of Dartmoor: Second Edition
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Dartmoor (England)
A visitor to Dartmoor in June or July will be surprised to find flights
of rooks over it. As soon as their maternal cares are over, they desert
the rookeries on the lowland and go for change of air and diet to the
moor, where they feed on the whortleberry, possibly, but most certainly
on the daddy longlegs and its first cousin, who is the hateful wireworm
in his fully developed form. A friend one day saw a bit of the moor
dense with rooks, and surprised at their movements and excitement,
observed them closely, and discovered that they were having a glut of
daddy longlegs. The light and friable peat earth exactly suits the
wireworm in its early stages, and when the pest emerged from the soil
full blown, then the rooks were down on him before he could come to our
gardens and turnip fields to devastate them.
The one deficiency in the soil on Dartmoor is lime. That will sweeten
the grass and enable the cattle to thrive. Bullocks and other cattle
will do on the moor, but they really need a change to land on lime
whilst they are growing. The roots of the grass and heather are
ravenous after lime, and for this reason it is that of the many
interments on the moor hardly a particle of bone remains.
From Post Bridge starts the Lych Way, the Road of the Dead, along
which corpses were conveyed to Lydford, the parish church, until, in
1260, Bishop Bronescombe gave licence to the inhabitants of Dartmoor,
who lived nearer to Widdecombe than to Lydford, to resort thither for
baptisms and funerals.
The Lych Way may be traced from Conies Down Tor to Whitabarrow; thence
it strikes for Hill Bridge, and so across the spur of Black Down to
Lydford church.
When I was a boy I heard strange tales of the Lych Way--and of funerals
being seen passing over it of moonlight nights. But superstition is
dead now on Dartmoor, as elsewhere, and ghosts as well as pixies have
been banished, not as the old moormen say, by the "ding-dongs" of the
church and mission chapel bells, but by the voice of the schoolmaster.
A walk or scramble down the Dart will take to the ruins of the Snaily
House, the story concerning which I have told elsewhere.[28] It may be
carried on to Dartmeet, where a little colony of inhabitants will be
found, and a return may be taken over Bellever Tor, a striking height
that holds its own, and seems to be the true centre of the moor. On
its slopes are several kistvaens, but all have been robbed of their
covering-stones. There is an unpleasant morass between Bellever Tor and
the high-road.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account