A book of the west. Volume 1, Devon : $b being an introduction to Devon and CornwallBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
A book of the west. Volume 1, Devon : $b being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Devon (England)
1. Neprani fili Condevi
2. Sabini fili Maccodecheti
3. Dobunii Fabri fili Enabarri.
This latter has on it also in oghans _Enabarr_. The second has the
test word _Mac_ for _Map_ or _Mab_, indicative of Irish occupation.
Moreover Dechet was a name, probably of a _sept_ or tribe in Kerry,
where several stones inscribed with the same name are found.[35]
[35] A member of the same clan or tribe was buried at Penrhos
Llygwyin, Anglesea--"_Hic jacet Maccudecheti_."
The third is interesting, for Dobun was a _faber_ or smith. In
Celtic organisation every _tuatha_ or tribe had its chief smith,
and every _fine_ or clan had its smith and forge as well, all whose
rights and dues were determined by law; moreover, the head smith of
the tribe was a man of very considerable consequence, social and
political.
_Dobuni_, in the third, is the Latin for the genitive _Douvinias_,
also a Kerry name. A stone at Ballintaggart bears an inscription to
a son of Dobunus, MUCCOIDOVVINIAS. Another stone of another son is
at Burnham, also in Kerry, in Lord Ventry's collection. Here, then,
we have written and engraven in stone for our learning the record of
an Irish settlement from Kerry in the neighbourhood of Tavistock. If
S. Rumon preached there he could preach in Gaelic and be understood.
Of the abbey of Tavistock there are but poor remains. Betsy
Grimbal's tower in the vicarage garden was a gate-house, and
takes its name from a woman who was murdered there by a soldier.
A porch into the refectory or abbot's hall is the dairy of the
"Bedford Inn." Some fragments of the monastic buildings are united
and converted into library and municipal buildings, but they are
dominated and oppressed by an architectural monstrosity--an absurd
Town Hall in nondescript style.
The Drake statue is of bronze, and fine, in front of the Fitzford
gate, and possesses the bas-reliefs on the base, in which the
_replica_ on Plymouth Hoe is deficient. Sir Francis Drake was born
at Crowndale, the first farm down the Tavy valley. The old house
has been destroyed. The Drakes were of yeoman origin in Whitchurch,
nothing more. They laboured to prove a kinship to the ancient family
of Drake of Ash, but failed, and Sir Francis Drake was granted an
entirely new coat of arms.
The story is told that Sir Francis and Sir Bernard,--the latter the
head of the Ash family--had a heated quarrel over the matter in the
presence of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Bernard objecting to the navigator
assuming the wyvern gules.
"Well," said Bess, "I will give Sir Francis a new coat, a ship in
full sail, with the wyvern turned head over heels at the poop."
But Sir Bernard was too important a man to be offended; she thought
better of it, and gave Sir Francis the noble coat of a fess wavy
between two pole stars.
The story is pronounced to be apocryphal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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