Barnstaple Fair - a song - (part 4)

Fairground ride - By Iantresman (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

[cont...] "...King George the Third rode out to Staines the hounds to lay the stag on,
But that was.no great things of sport, for mighty kings to brag on,
The French, alas ! go a la chasse in von po shay and pair,
But what's all that to Button Hill ? To Barnstaple Fair?

For we will all a-hunting go, on horse, or mule, or mare, Sir !
For everything is in the field to Barnstaple Fair, Sir!
To Button Hill, whose name to all the sporting world sure known is,
Go bits of blood, and hunters, hacks, and little Exmoor ponies ;

When lords and ladies, doctors, passons, farmers, squires prepare,
To hunt the stag with hound and horn to Barnstaple Fair,
Then up and ride for Chillam Bridge, or on to Bratton town, Sir,

To view the rouse, or watch the Yeo, to see the stag come down, Sir !
 

There's nothing else in jollity and hospitable fare, Sir!
That ever can with Barnstaple in fair time compare, Sir!
And guests are very welcome hospitality to share, Sir!
For beer is brew'd, and beef is bought to Barnstaple Fair, Sir !..." [cont....]
 

 

Hewett 19000

 

Devon toad charm to staunch blood

Common Toad - Bufo Bufo - By Lilly M (Own work) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

"Take a fine full-grown toad ; kill him, then take three bricks and keep in a very hot oven until they are red hot. Take one out and place the toad upon it ; when the brick is cold remove the toad ; then take the other bricks and place the toad on them successively until he be reduced to powder. Then take the toad ashes and sew them up carefully in a silk bag one-and-a-half inch square. When one is bleeding place this bag on the heart of the sufferer, and it will instantly stay the bleeding of the nose or any wound."

Hewett 1900

Devon Charm to stop a nose bleed

Statue of Our Lady with Christ child, Buckfast Abbey, Devon

"Say nine times with great faith these words :

Blood abide in this vein as Christ abideth in the church, and hide in thee as Christ hideth from himself.

The bleeding will presently cease."

Hewett 1900

Toad snuff: a Devon charm for a nose bleed

Common Toad Bufo bufo - I cannot imagine anyone being so cruel to such a lovely creature - By Ernie (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

"TAKE one or two fine old toads, place them in a cold oven, increase the heat until sufficiently fierce to cook the toads and reduce them to a brown crisp mass. Remove from the oven and beat them to powder in a stone mortar. Place the powder in a box and use as snuff!"

Hewett 1900

Devon charm to cure a thorn in the flesh

Cima da Conegliano, Christ Crowned with Thorns, 15th - 16th century

"Our dear Lord Jesus Christ was pricked with thorns. His blood went back to Heaven again, His flesh neither cankered, rankled, nor festered, neither shall thine, M. or N. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen, Amen, Amen."

Hewett 1900

[Not sure what "M. or N." meens...]

Devon charm to staunch blood

Blood cells.

"As Christ was born in Bethlehem and baptized in the river Jordan, He said to the water, "Be still.'' So shall thy blood cease to flow. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen."

Hewett 1900

Devon charm to remove warts

European eel (Anguilla anguilla) from nl wikipedia
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. With consent of the photographer Ron Offermans

"Take an eel and cut off the head. Rub the warts with the blood of the head. Then bury the head in the ground. When the head is rotten the warts fall off."

Hewett 1900

Charming, striking and blessing in Devon

The Love Potion - Evelyn de Morgan (1855–1919)

"The mode of applying charms and medicaments has been handed down to us from the remotest ages. The witch doctor cured through the imagination. "Conceit will kill and conceit will cure," said a celebrated Harley Street physician to a medical student who one day applied to him for advice. It certainly is the case with regard to talismans. Playing on a patient's will and feelings, has stronger power in curing disease than we are inclined to credit. To the powerful influence of strong-minded, unscrupulous persons over those of weaker constitution may be attributed the success of the nostrums prescribed. Added to the physical presence of the charm, the hypnotic persuasion of the operator compels the patient to believe that a cure has been effected through the charm.

Pinches of powdered plants, scraps of inscribed vellum, dried limbs of loathsome reptiles, juices of poisonous herbs, blood, excrements, and gruesome compositions all blend together to make up the witch's charms. Who among the weak in mind, the uneducated, and the frivolous could resist falling a victim to the seductive attraction of a talisman, whose virtues would secure health, wealth and happiness? Much of a witch's success depended on the unremitting persuasive force she exerted on her patients to stimulate them to believe implicitly in her. This once attained, her influence became unlimited. The degree of strength exerted affected the progress of convalescence. For mercenary reasons the witch took care that a cure was not too quickly brought about.

I have interviewed many a believer in the efficacy of charms, and from them obtained curious examples of miscellaneous articles claiming miraculous powers to heal. Besides the sale of charms the white witch cures diseases by "striking" and blessing."

Hewett 1900

Drawing blood from a witch to negate the Evil Eye

   Witches' Sabbath, 1821-1823. Francisco de Goya (1746–1828)

"The surest method of escaping the influence of the evil eye, is to draw blood from the person of the witch. Shakespeare, in Henry III, says:
 

Devil or devil's dam, I'll conjure thee :
Blood will I draw. Thou art a witch.

A country man told me recently that he had "raped old mother Tapp's arm with a great rusty nail two or three times," till he made the blood flow freely. "She can't hurt me again arter that," said he."

Hewett 1900

The death of Hugh de Pomeroy

Berry Pomeroy Castle- from Lysons Vol. 6 (Devonshire) published 1822

"While Richard Coeur de Lion was in captivity in Austria, Hugh de la Pomeroy, an adherent of John's, seized the Mount, expelled the monks, and fortified the place for that rebellious prince. On the return of Richard, however, Pomeroy, dreading his vengeance, fled to his castle of Berry Pomeroy, and some say had himself bled to death, others, that mounting his favourite charger, he leapt from the edge of the rocks at Berry Pomeroy, and was thus killed."

Valentine (undated)

Map - Saint Michael's Mount
Map - Berry Pomeroy

Corfe Castle - part 2

"Edward was hunting in the forest of Wareham one day, when the clever, cankered dwarf of the queen, Wulstan, came up to him, and by some story of strange bird or beast, lured the boy-king to follow him into the wood, and leave his attendants. Then, finding that Corfe Castle, where his brother dwelt, was close at hand, Edward thought he should like to see little Ethelred - then ten or eleven year' old - and rode thus unattended to the door of his stepmother's home. She received him at the doorway, kissed him, and asked him to alight. He declined, but asked to see his brother. Elfrida then called for wine, and whilst the king held the cup to his lips, either the queen or one of her attendants stabbed him in the back. The wounded prince had, however, strength enough to set spurs to his horse, and attempt to rejoin his suite; but fainting from loss of blood, he fell; his foot got entangled in the stirrup, and he was dragged a considerable distance, till the horse stopped of itself Elfrida, alarmed at his apparent escape, sent servants after him, who found the poor young prince dead, and his face much cut by the flints of the road over which he had been dragged. The queen ordered his body to be lodged in a house near; on that spot a church was afterwards built. The next morning she had it conveyed to a marshy place, and retired herself to a mansion of hers called Bere, ten miles off. Little Ethelred had seen the murder, and was overpowered by his mother's wickedness; he reproached her so bitterly, in his childish grief and horror, that she beat him most severely with the great wax tapers, the only weapons she had near her hand. Ethelred was so much hurt that he hated the sight of them ever afterwards. Edward's body was found, and the murder discovered; but Ethelred, who of course was quite innocent of his beloved brother's death, succeeded to the throne. Dunstan was compelled to crown him ; but as he placed the royal diadem on the boy's head, he accompanied the act with an awful prophecy. It ran thus: "Even as, by the death of thy brother, thou didst aspire to the kingdom, hear the decree of Heaven. The sin of thy wicked mother and of her accomplices shall rest upon thy head, and such evils shall fall upon the English as they have never yet suffered, from the days when they first came into the isle of Britain even until the present time."..." [cont.]

Valentine (undated)

The Legend of John Trinnaman's Pool - part 3

...The dead body was washed away by the fast flowing river. When the master of Stowford House missed the pantry boy, he enquired of the butler as to the boy’s disappearance. John Trinnaman then told the master that he had chastised the boy and last saw him running off towards the river. Servants were sent to search the river and eventually found the dead boy caught in reeds further downstream. In the meantime, the lady of Stowford House discovered the butler frantically trying to clean the blood stains off the kitchen wall and his terrible deed was revealed.
When John Trinnaman confessed the crime to his master, who was lord of the manor of Ivybridge and chief magistrate, he decreed the the butler should go down to the river Erme and fetch a bag of sand to scour off the blood stains from the kitchen walls.

John Trinnaman collected the sand and desperately tried to remove the bloodstains but however hard he worked the stains would not go. Consequently, the master of Stowford House thrashed him with a horse whip, gave him a bag and a piece of rope to tie the top of the bag and chased him from the kitchen to get more clean sand.

When he went down to the river this time, the river was in full flood and as the bruised and battered butler struggled up the river bank with his bag of wet sand, he fell backwards exhausted into the river and drowned... [cont.]

Saint Nectan

Foxglove - Pam Brophy [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

[The Christian Nectan was the eldest of a royal house in Wales in the sixth century, or so the legend goes. It was said that he felt the calling of the ascetic life of a hermit, and so set his coracle onto the sea and aloud the Lord to take him where he would. The wind and waves pushed him hither and thither, before finally setting him down safely on the rugged north Devon shoreline, near Hartland (a minor miracle in its self, given the fierceness of that storm blighted peninsular). It was here that he built is Hermits hut by the well that bares his name. Seeing his absolute poverty a kindly local farmer by the name of Huddon gifted Nectan two cows, ostensibly in return for helping him locate some lost pigs.

One day Nectan found his cows gone, and by following their hoof marks soon overtook the thieves who where in the process of stealing them. Seeing nothing more than a week skinny hermit the thugs knocked him down and killed the Saint. It is said that where ever the Saints blood flowed foxgloves grew. Nectan became so venerated that 500 or so years later a total of 39 churches where erected and dedicated to the Welsh Saint (34 in Cornwall and 5 in Devon)

- Thanks to Ann from Ideford for forwarding me this story, probably written by a former vicar of Ashcombe (though here retold in my own words). She added that next Sunday (the 13th of June) the people of Ashcombe Church will be celebrating Saint Nectan, it being the nearest Sunday to his day (he is the saint to whom their church is dedicated). They will also sing a hymn about the Saint, written by the same Vicar who put the above story to paper.

I have a few years ago also been told this story by a north Devon resident, who adds to the story, saying that not only was the saints head cut off, but he then picked it up and carried it under his arm back to his well, dripping blood and conjuring foxgloves for 2 or 3 miles. She had part of an old green lane running across the back of her overgrown orchard (we estimated from the age of the age and uncared for nature of trees and the spread of bluebells from the bank it had been abandoned for around 40 years - having been told bluebells spread one meter every ten years!). The lane, though hard to use, did indeed contain masses of foxgloves, despite the overgrown hedges.]

Map - Hartland
Map - Ashcombe

Dosemary Pool - part 3

'...Surrounded with all that is supposed to minister to the enjoyment of a sensual life, time passes on, and "Tregeagle ne'er notyc'd its flyghte." Yet we are told "he marked each day with some damnable deed." In the midst of his vicious career he is returning home through a violent storm, and he is accosted by a damsel on a white horse and a little page by her side, who craves his protection. Tregeagle takes this beautiful maiden to his castle. The page is made to tell the lady's story; she is called Goonhylda, and is the daughter of "Earl Cornwaill," living in Launceston, or, as it was then called, "Dunevyd Castle." Engaged in the pleasures of the hunt, the lady and her page are lost and overtaken by the storm. Tregeagle, as the storm rages savagely, makes them his "guests for the nyghte," promising to send a "quicke messenger" to inform her father of her whereabouts. At the same time --

"If that the countenance speaketh the mynde,
Dark deeds he revolved in hys breaste."

The earl hears nothing of his daughter; and having passed a miserable night, he sets forth in the morning, "wyth hys knyghtes, and esquyers, and serving-men all," in search of his child; and --

"At length to the plaine he emerged from the woode,
For a father, alas, what a syghte!
There lay her fayre garments all drenched in blood,
Her palfreye all torn in the dark crimson floode,
By the ravenous beasts of the nyghte."...' [cont.]

Hunt 1903

Dosemary Pool - part 3

'...Tregeagle, in the ballad, is a shepherd dwelling "by the poole on the moore." He was ambitious and unscrupulous. "I wish for all that I see !" was his exclamation, when "a figure gigantick" is seen "midst the gloom of the night."

This spirit offers Tregeagle, in exchange for his soul, all that he desires for one hundred years. Tregeagle does not hesitate:--

"'A bargaine! a bargaine!' he said aloude;
'At my lot I will never repine;
I sweare to observe it, I sweare by the roode.
And am readye to scale and to sygne with my bloode,
Both my soul and my body are thine."

Tregeagle is thrown into a trance, from which he awakes to find himself "cloathed in gorgeous attyre," and master of a wide domain of great beauty:

"Where Dozmare lake its darke waters did roil,
A castle now reared its heade,
Wythe manye a turrete soe statelye and talle;
And many a warden dyd walke on its-walle,
All splendidly cloathed in redde."...' [cont.]

Hunt 1903

The giant of Goran

'IN the parish of Goran is an intrenchment running from cliff to cliff, and cutting off about a hundred acres of coarse ground. This is about twenty feet broad, and twenty-four feet high in most places.

Marvellous as it may appear, tradition assures us that this was the work of a giant, and that he performed the task in a single night. This fortification has long been known as Thica Vosa, and the Hack and Cast.

The giant, who lived on the promontory, was the terror of the neighbourhood, and great were the rejoicings in Goran when his death was accomplished through a stratagem by a neighbouring doctor.

The giant fell ill through eating some food--children or otherwise--to satisfy his voracity, which had disturbed his stomach. His roars and groans were heard for miles, and great was the terror throughout the neighbourhood. A messenger, however, soon arrived at the residence of the doctor of the parish, and he bravely resolved to obey the summons of the giant, and visit him. He found the giant rolling on the ground with pain, and he at once determined to rid the world, if possible, of the monster.

He told him that he must be bled. The giant submitted, and the doctor moreover said that, to insure relief, a large hole in the cliff must be filled with the blood. The giant lay on the ground, his arm extended over the hole, and the blood flowing a torrent into it. Relieved by the loss of blood, he permitted the stream to flow on, until he at last became so weak, that the doctor kicked him over the cliff, and killed him. The well-known promontory of The Dead Man, or Dodman, is so called from the dead giant. The spot on which he fell is the "Giant's House," and the hole has ever since been most favourable to the growth of ivy.'

Hunt 1903

The giant Bolster, part 3

[cont.] '...Be this as it may, the giant Bolster became deeply in love with St Agnes, who is reputed to have been singularly beautiful, and a pattern woman of virtue. The giant allowed the lady no repose. He followed her incessantly, proclaiming his love, and filling the air with the tempests of his sighs and groans. St Agnes lectured Bolster in vain on the impropriety of his conduct, he being already a married man. This availed not; her prayers to him to relieve her from his importunities were also in vain. The persecuted lady, finding there was no release for her, while this monster existed, resolved to be rid of him at any cost, and eventually succeeded by the following stratagem:-- Agnes appeared at length to be persuaded of the intensity of the giant's love, but she told him she required yet one small proof more. There exists at Chapel Porth a hole in the cliff at the termination of the valley. If Bolster would fill this hole with his blood the lady would no longer look coldly on him. This huge bestrider-of-the-hills thought that it was an easy thing which was required of him, and felt that he could fill many such holes and be none the weaker for the loss of blood. Consequently, stretching his great arm across the hole, he plunged a knife into a vein, and a torrent of gore issued forth. Roaring and seething the blood fell to the bottom, and the giant expected in a few minutes to see the test of his devotion made evident, in the filling of the hole. It required much more blood than Bolster had supposed; still it must in a short time be filled, so he bled on. Hour after hour the blood flowed from the vein, yet the hole was not filled. Eventually the giant fainted from exhaustion. The strength of life within his mighty frame enabled him to rally, yet he had no power to lift himself from the ground, and he was unable to stanch the wound which he had made. Thus it was, that after many throes, the giant Bolster died !

The cunning saint, in proposing this task to Bolster, was well aware that the hole opened at the bottom into the sea, and that as rapidly as the blood flowed into the hole it ran from it, and did

"The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red."

Thus the lady got rid of her hated lover; Mrs Bolster was released, and the district freed from the presence of a tyrant. The hole at Chapel Porth still retains the evidences of the truth of this tradition, in the red stain which marks the track down which flowed the giant's blood.

There is another tradition, in some respects resembling this one, respecting a giant who dwelt at Goran, on the south Coast....'

Hunt 1903

Tom, Jane and Jack the Tinker, Part 3

The tinkeard took the thorn-stick in the middle, and made it fly round Tom's head so fast that he couldn't see it. It looked like a wheel whizzing round his ears, and Tom soon got a bloody nose and two black eyes. Tom's blows had no effect on the tinkeard, because he wore such a coat as was never seen in the West Country before. It was made out of a shaggy black bull's hide, dressed whole with the hair on. The skin of the forelegs made the sleeves, the hind quarters only were cut, pieces being let in to make the spread of the skirts, while the neck and skin of the head formed a sort of hood. The whole appeared as hard as iron; and when Tom hit the tinkeard, it sounded, as if the coat roared, like thunder. They fought until Tom got very hungry, and he found he had the worst of it. " I believe thee art the devil, and no man," says Tom. "Let 's see thy feet before thee dost taste any more of my blood."

The tinkeard showed Tom that he had no cloven foot, and told him that it depended more on handiness than strength to conquer with the single-stick; and that a small man with science could beat a big man with none. The tinkeard then took the clumsy bar of the gate from Tom, gave him his own light and tough blackthorn, and proceeded to teach him to make the easiest passes, cuts, &c. Whilst the two men were thus engaged, Jane had prepared the dinner, and called her husband three times. She wondered what could be keeping Tom, as he was always ready to run to his dinner at the first call. At length she went out of the castle to seek for him, and surprised she was, and--if truth must be told--rather glad to see another man inside the gates, which no one had passed for years. Jane found Tom and the tinkeard tolerable friends by this time, and she begged them both to come into dinner, saying to the tinkeard that she wished she had something better to set before him. She was vexed that Tom hadn't sent her word, that she might have prepared something better than the everlasting beef and pease; and vowed she would give him a more savoury mess for supper, if she had to go to the hills for a sheep or a kid herself.

At length the men were seated at the board, which groaned beneath the huge piece of boiled beef, with mountains of pease pudding, and they soon got fairly to work. Jane then went to the cellar, and tapped a barrel of the strongest beer, which was intended to have been kept for a tide (feast). Of the meat, Tom ate twice as much as the tinkeard, and from the can of ale he took double draughts. The tinkeard ate heartily, but not voraciously; and, for those days, he was no hard drinker. Consequently, as soon as dinner was over, Tom fell back against the wall, and was quickly snoring like a tempest. His custom was to sleep two or three hours after every meal. The tinkeard was no sleepy-head, so he told Jane to bring him all her pots and pans which required mending, and he would put them in order. He seated himself amidst a vast pile, and was soon at work. The louder Tom snored, the more Jack rattled and hammered away at the kettles; and ere Tom was awake, he had restored Jane's cooking vessels to something like condition..." [cont...]

Hunt 1903