Help finding old books

[Hello,

Dose any one know of any other out of copyright / Copy left texts about the folklore of the Westcountry that I have not already listed on the bar to the right?   

If you do please leave a reference under the comments section on this post. 

I still have a long way to go before I have worked all the way through these, but it would still be good to have them for others to reference.

Thanks for taking the time to read the blog - It will continue to get better over time.

The 'search' is still not that brilliant, but the tags are at the bottom of the screen if you want to find all about the Westcountry folklore of one thing (e.g. 'Trees').

Enjoy,

Ent]

My Grandparents at Tavistock

Abbots' Way, or Jobbers' Path

"Petre's Cross is near to the Abbots' Way, or Jobbers' Path, as it is sometimes called, the track from Buckfast to Buckland and Tavistock Abbeys, now only a green path. The wool trade, which still prospers at Buckfastleigh, was formerly carried on by the monks of Buckfast, and it has been conjectured that over Jobber's Path bales of their merchandise were conveyed."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Petre's Cross
Map - Buckfast Abbey
Map - Buckland Abbey
Map - Tavistock Abbey ruins

Roman's Cross and Saint Rumon

"From Shaugh we can walk across the moor towards the east, making for Roman's Cross and passing the so-called Roman camp on our way.

Roman's Cross was so called by the monks of Tavistock, from St. Rumon to whom the abbey was dedicated, and whose name also survives in Romansleigh in North Devon, a manor to the abbey."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Roman's Cross
Map - Tavistock
Map - Romansleigh

Childe the Hunter

Childe's Tomb, from Wikipedia thanks to Herbythyme, under a Creative Commons license.

"Down the valley to the east [of Nun's Cross], is White Works, a hamlet from which perhaps the most romantic of all the Dartmoor memorials may be reached: Childe, the Hunter's Tomb. It lies exactly under Fox Tor, the mire of that name occupying the basin between White Works and the tomb, which is visible from between the houses to those who know it. But the impassable bog makes a straight line impossible ; to reach it we must keep close to the wall on the north and cross the stream at the lower end of the mire. Then by skirting the higher ground we can get at the tomb, which consists of several stones, surmounted by a cross, but is not the original structure; and here we stand upon the scene of one of the most picturesque stories of the moor, the legend of Childe the Hunter.

Mr Baring Gould preserves among Songs of the West the Dartmoor ballad that tells the story :-

It so befell, as I've heard tell,

There came the hunter Childe;

All day he chased on heath and waste,

On Dart-a-moor so wild.

Cold blew the blast, the snow fell fast,

And darker grew the night ;

He wandered high, he wandered low,

And nowhere saw a light.

His knife he drew, his horse he slew

As on the ground it lay:

He cut full deep, therein to creep

And tarry till the day.

The wind did blow, fast fell the snow,

And darker grew the night;

Then well he wot, he hope might not 

Again to see the light.

So with his finger dipped in blood.

He scribbled on the stone-

One is grateful to the ballad for telling us on what substance Child wrote that last will and testament, found when teh snow had melted beside his dead body:-

They fyrste that fyndes and brings mee to my grave,

My landes of Plimstoke they shall have.

In due course of time the discovery of the body and the writing was reported, when it occurred to the monks of Tavistock that the very best persons to be the heirs of Childe were themselves, to the advantage of the abbey. So they started for Fox Tor to fetch the body. Meanwhile the men of Plymstock determined to have the honour of burying Childe and inheriting the property themselves.  But they allowed the monks to have the arduous task of getting to Fox Tor and bringing the corpse over the moor. A number of them waited at the bridge over the Tavy, with the intention of stirring up a fight and carrying off the body before it reached Tavistock Abbey. But the monks suspected assault, and tricked them in a truly monkish manner, throwing a light bridge over the river at another point, by which they quietly carried the hunter's body to the abbey, while the Plymstock worthies waited elsewhere. Childe the hunter was buried with due honours, and the abbey inherited the property. The bridge remained, and was called Guile Bridge.

The learned have rejected this legend, but we would rather let it rest, as it adds to the weird picturesqueness of this part of the moor. The vandalism of the farmer has unfortunately destroyed the original monument, which was spoken of in Risdon's time as one of the three remarkable things about the forest. Crossing has given, in his Ancient Crosse, and also in an article dealing with the subject in his series of papers on the Folk-Rhymes of Devon , a full account of its destruction, and of the subsequent discovery by him of its site and various parts.

After crossing the moor to see Childe's Tomb, one is impressed with the feeling that whoever found his body and brought it back for burial merited the reward."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Childe's Tomb
Map - Plymstock
Map - Tavistock
[The location of Guile Bridge appears to have been lost.]

Mrs and Mr Bray, and Rev. Samuel Rowe - part one

"Little has been written about Dartmoor until the early part of the nineteenth century. The Rev. Samuel Rowe, incumbent of St George's, Stonehouse, and afterwords vicar of Crediton, was much interested in the Moor, and in 1830 read a paper on it in the Plymouth Institution, afterwords working at the Preambulation of Dartmoor, published in 1848. Mr. Bray, who was a Tavistock man, and vicar of that town in 1811, commenced his investigations about 1801. To his wife's friendship with Southey we owe her delightful book The Borders of the Tamar and the Tavy, containing many extracts from her husband's journals, and addressed as letters to the poet..."[cont.]

Cresswell 1921

Map - Stonehouse
Map - Crediton
Map - Tavistock

Merrivale Potato Market

"The moorfolk in the vicinity [of Merrivale] call the place the Potato Market. It is said that when the plague raged at Tavistock in 1625, and no one dared to go into town, food was brought to the top of the hill and laid among the hut circles.  Then Tavistock men came and fetched it away, leaving money for payment in the same place."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Merrivale 

Lady Howard - Okehampton Castle

"While the antiquary studies the shattered walls [of Okehampton Castle], the folk-lorist will be rejoicing in the legend of Lady Howard of notorious memory.  She was the daughter of Sir John Fitz, of Fitzford, Tavistock (not the Elizabethan astrologer, whose name we shall presently see, but a later knight of the same name), and has a reputation of having been very wicked, but if we read her history we shall perhaps feel she was more sinned against than sinning. Four husbands had she (but was twice a widow before she was sixteen!).  She always chose to be called by the title of her third husband, Sir Charles Howard, son of the Duke of Suffolk; her fourth was Sir Richard Granville, the most detestable of all the governors of Lydford Castle.

In the Civil War Lady Howard chose to espouse the Parliamentary cause, which doubtless aggravated her crimes in the opinion of loyal west-countrymen. Mrs Bray says that she had heard a vague tradition that Lady Howard died in a state of mental misery and agony in a house near Okehampton, and to this day expiates her wickedness by running nightly to Fitzford, Tavistock, to Okehampton Park, in the form of a black dog, to bring away a blade of grass. When all the grass is plucked the day of judgment will come, and her penance will be ended. Sometimes the dog is described as accompanying the coach of bones, in which tradition says she used to drive towards the moor. Mr. Baring Gould preserves the story among Songs of the West in a ballad, gruesome both in words and tune :-

My Ladye hath a sable coach,

With horses two and four;

My Ladye hath a gaunt bloodhound,

That goeth before:

My Ladye's coach hath nodding plumes,

The driver hath no head,

My Ladye is an ashen white,

As one that long is dead.

It is needless to add that misfortune is sure to follow the luckless individual who meets "My Ladye" in her weird journey across the moor."

Cresswel 1921

Map - Okehampton
Map - Lydford Castle
Map - Fitzeford House Gatehouse, Tavistock

Extracts about Sir Francis Drake the "Sea King"

'The town-Hall of Plymouth is very fine, and its painted windows record the adventures of the West-country Hero, Drake.

It was on the Hoe that Sir Francis Drake and the captains of the Fleet were playing a game of bowls, when that true-hearted mariner, Captain Thomas Fleming, came to him with news of the approach of the Spanish Armada, which he had seen - a mighty shadow looming over the sea - on the French coast, and had put on all sail and urged his vessel to the English shore at her greatest speed, to forewarn the nation of the advent of her deadly foe...

...We must be pardoned if we digress for a moment to say a few words about this English "sea king" of Elizabeth's days; for assuredly, with the exception of Nelson, England has no greater sea-worthy on her roll of fame. Drake, after repeatedly fight. ing with, and defeating the Spaniards in the West Indies, had, in 1587, with thirty sail of men-of-war, destroyed ten thousand tons of shipping in Cadiz Bay, which he called "singeing the King of Spain's whiskers." He was a man of low stature, but well set, with brown hair, a fair complexion, and a cheerful open countenance. Elizabeth distinguished him by especial favour. She had knighted him after his return from his celebrated voyage round the world, undertaken in his own ship, and she warmly upheld the dignity she had conferred....

...A large bronze statue of Sir Francis Drake by Boehm (a replica of one given to Tavistock by the Duke of Bedford) was erected by public subscription on Plymouth Hoe, in 1884, and was unveiled by Lady Drake, as the representative of the family, on February 14th. There is now a National Memorial of the defeat of the Armada erected, which has medallion portraits of all the heroes of that great fight round the pedestal, with a figure of Britannia at the top. Plymouth and the west country are very proud of their great captains, amongst whole are reckoned some of the greatest of the subjects of Elizabeth.'

Valentine (undated)

[full text and detailed description of events - http://www.mspong.org/picturesque/plymouth.html]

Tavistock Abbey

'Within the pleasant grounds of the vicarage stands the ancient Still-house and Betsy Grimbal's Tower, so called from a woman said to have been murdered there.'

Hope Moncrieff 1895

Tavistock and Ordulf

'The chief lion of the place is the Abbey founded in 961 by Orgar, Earl of Devonshire, the father of "Elfrida" who bartered her husband's life for a king's love; endowed and completed (981) by his gigantic son Ordulf, and dedicated as a Benedictine house to Sts. Mary and Rumon...'

'[At the parish church] ...Some bones of extraordinary size discovered in a stone coffin among the debris of the Abbey are reputed to be those of the giant Earl Ordulf.'

Hope Moncrieff 1895

Fice's or Fitz's Pool near Princetown

'John Fitz, of Fitzford, near Tavistock, who was one day riding with his wife, lost his way on the moor. After wandering in vain to find the right path, being thirsty and fatigued, he at last found a delicious spring of water, whose powers seemed to be miraculous, for no sooner had he partaken thereof than he was enabled to trace his steps correctly home wards. It is still believed to possess many healing virtues. In gratitude John Fitz erected the memorial stone marked I. F., 1568, which, with a few other slabs of granite, protects it, for the advantage of all pixy-led travellers. It is about 3 feet deep, and lies in a swamp near the remains of an ancient bridge, or clam, the bridge being partly swept away by a flood in 1873...

...One and a half miles north of Dartmoor Prison is the above well, protected by rude slabs of granite, bearing the initials J. F., and date 1568. It is said to possess many healing virtues, and to have been first brought into notice by John Fitz, of Fitzford, near Tavistock, who accidentally discovered it when, riding with his wife, he had lost his way on the moor. The legend runs that, "After wandering in the vain effort to find the right path, they felt so fatigued and thirsty that it was with extreme delight they discovered a spring of water, whose powers seemed to be miraculous ; for no sooner had they satisfied, their thirst than they were enabled to find their way through the moor towards home without the least difficulty. In gratitude for this deliverance, and the benefit they had received from the water, John Filz caused a stone memorial to be placed over the spring, for the advantage of all pixy-led travellers." It ¡s about 3 feet deep, and lies in a swamp at a short distance from the remains of an ancient bridge, or clam, on the Blackabrook. The bridge was swept away by a flood " (1873). — Murray's Guide, 207.

Hope 1893

[seems to have accidentally got two entries!]

The giant Ordulf

'THIS Tavistock Sampson is far removed from our fine old legendary giant; yet we perceive in the stories of Ordulph precisely the same process as that which has given immortality to Blunderbuss and others. In the church of the monastery of Tavistock, built by Orgar in 960, and consecrated by St Rumon, was buried Orgar, and also his son Edulf or Ordulph, to whom, by some writers, the foundation of the abbey is attributed Ordulph was a man of giant size, and possessing most remarkable strength. He once appeared before the gates of the city of Exeter in company with King Edward, and demanded admission. His demand was not immediately complied with. He tore away the bars of the portcullis with his hands--burst open the gates with his foot--rent the locks and bolts asunder--and broke down a considerable portion of the wall--walking into the city over the ruins, and occasioning great alarm amidst the inhabitants.

The king is said to have attributed this extraordinary feat of strength to the chieftain's having entered into a compact with the devil; and the people generally believed the king to be correct.

At Tavistock, it was the custom of Ordulph to stand with one foot on either side of the Tavy, which is about twenty feet wide, and having the wild beasts driven in from the Dartmoor forests, he would--with the seemingly insignificant blows of a small knife--strike their heads off into the stream. [a]

[a] William of Malmesbury tells us that both father and son were buried at Tavistock, which is thus described - Est in Domnonia caenobium monachorum, juxta Tau fiuvium, quod Tavistock vocator; quod per Ordgarum, comitem Domnoniensem, patrem Elffilda, gui fuit uxor regis Edgari, surgendi exordium, per Livinguns episcopum, cresendi accepit auspicium locus, amaenus opportunitate nemorum, captura copiosa piscum, Ecclesiae congruente fabriea, fluvialibus rivis per officinas monachorum decurrentibus, qui suo impetu effusi, quidquid invenerint superfium, portant in exitum." Quoted by Pedler in his "Episcopate of Cornwall."

Mrs Bray, in her "Traditions, Legends, Superstitions, and Sketches of Devonshire," says,--"But notwithstanding the superiority of his strength and stature, Ordulph died in the flower of his age. He gave orders to be buried at his abbey at Herton, in Dorsetshire; but was interred in or near the Abbey Church of Tavistock, where a mausoleum or tomb of vast dimensions was erected to his memory, which is represented to have been visited as a wonder. 'The thigh-bone of Ordulph is still preserved in Tavistock Church."'

Hunt 1903

Childe's Tomb

'There are some points of peculiar interest connected with the Dartmoor traditions, indicating, as I conceive, a purely Saxon origin, deserving an attention which they have not yet received.

Childe's Tomb, in one of the dreariest portions of the moor, is a large cross of granite. This Childe, lord of the manor of Plymstock, was benighted on the moor in a snowstorm; he killed his horse, and got within its body for warmth, having first written in blood on a granite slab, near which he was found dead,--

"The first that finds and brings me to my grave,
The lands of Plymstock he shall have.'

The Benedictine monks of Tavistock are said to have found the body, and thus secured their right to the lands. This is without doubt an old Saxon legend, modified, as it has been handed down from age to age.'

Hunt 1903

Tavistock Giant

'I shall have to tell, by and by, the story of a so-called giant, who could bestride the lovely river which flows through the luxuriant valley of Tavistock, where, also, the inquiring traveller is shown his grave.'

Hunt 1903



Map - Tavistock