Strange Pages from Family PapersThiselton-Dyer, T. F. (Thomas Firminger)
History
Strange Pages from Family Papers
Thiselton-Dyer, T. F. (Thomas Firminger)
Legends; Superstition
dug where the dark Eagle's Crag shoots out its cold, bare peak into
the sky, and on the eve of All Hallows, the hound and the milk-white
doe are supposed by the peasantry to meet on the Crag, pursued by a
spectre huntsman in full chase. It is further added that the belated
peasant crosses himself at the sound, remembering the sad fate of Lady
Sybil of Bernshaw Tower.
It is curious to find no less a person than Sir Francis Drake charged
with having been befriended by the devil; and the many marvellous
stories current respecting him still linger among the Devonshire
peasantry. By the aid of the devil, it is said, he was enabled to
destroy the Spanish Armada. And his connection with the old Abbey of
Buckland is equally singular. An extensive building attached to the
abbey, for instance, which was no doubt used as barns and stables
after the place had been deprived of its religious character, was
reported to have been built by the devil in three nights. "After the
first night," writes Mr. Hunt,[35] "the butler, astonished at the work
done, resolved to watch and see how it was performed. Consequently,
on the second night, he mounted into a large tree and hid himself
between the forks of its five branches. At midnight, so the story
goes, the devil came, driving teams of oxen, and, as some of them were
lazy, he plucked this tree from the ground and used it as a goad. The
poor butler lost his senses and never recovered them." Although, as it
has been truly remarked, "on the waters that wash the shores of the
county of Devon were achieved many of those triumphs which make Sir
Francis Drake's life read more like a romance than a sober chronicle
of facts;" the extraordinary traditions told respecting him have
largely invested his life with the supernatural. But, whatever may
have been the nature of his dealings with the devil, we are told that
he has had to pay dearly for any earthly advantages he may have
derived therefrom in his lifetime, "being forced to drive at night a
black hearse, drawn by headless horses, and urged on by running devils
and yelping headless dogs, along the road from Tavistock to Plymouth."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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