Perhaps the Dartmoor village best known by name is Widdecombe-in-the-Moor, and its fame is spread by the song 'Widdecombe Fair;' this is the most popular of Devonshire folk-songs, and the air served the Devon Regiment as a march in the Boer War. But Widdecombe has more solid claims to consideration, and one of them is the large and beautiful church, with its very fine tower and high crocketed pinnacles, each pointed by a cross. The roof is adorned by 'bosses, carved and painted with heads, flowers and leaves, and also figures or marks which obscurely shadow forth the learning of the alchemist.' The presence of these symbols is explained by a tradition that the church was built by miners. 'On one of the bosses is the combination of three rabbits, each with a single ear, which join in the centre, forming a triangle--a favourite alchemical symbol, called the hunt of Venus.' Parts of the rood-screen remain, and on the panels are painted saints and doctors of the Church, and a king and queen. On October 21, 1638, a terrible storm raged here during service-time. First fell 'a strange darkenesse'; then a terrific thunder-clap; 'the ratling thereof' was much like 'the report of many great cannons.' 'Extraordinarie lightning' flashed, 'so flaming that the whole church was presently filled with fire and smoke,' and a smell of brimstone, and a great ball of fire came in at the window and passed through the church. The church itself was much torne and defaced, 'stones throwne from the Tower as thick as if an hundred men had been there throwing.' Several people were killed and many 'grievously scalded and wounded.' The history of the storm has been told in verse, and the lines were painted on tablets and placed in the church. Mrs Bray found 'the wildest tales' of the storm floating among the people in the neighbourhood, and, amongst them, 'One story is that the devil, dressed in black and mounted on a black horse, inquired his way to the church, of a woman who kept a little public-house on the moor. He offered her money to become his guide; but she distrusted him, in remarking that the liquor went hissing down his throat, and finally had her suspicions confirmed by discovering he had a cloven foot, which he could not conceal even by his boot.' Widdecombe is called cold and bleak, and it is not only with the terrific tempest that its name is associated, for when the snow fell thickly the South Devon folk used to look--as perhaps they still do--towards the moor, and say to the children: 'Widdecombe hills are picking their geese, faster, faster, faster.' About twelve miles south-west of Widdecombe is Sheeps Tor, a sharply defined height that has given its name to the parish and tiny village that it overshadows. Originally it was called Shettes Tor--that is, Steep Tor, the word being derived from the Celtic _syth_.