Reading the weather in Devon from the movements of animals - Crows

Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin - early 1900's

"Crows flocking in large flights, holding their heads upwards as they fly, and cawing louder than usual, is a sign of rain, as is also their stalking by ponds and rivers and sprinkling themselves."

Hewett 1900

Reading the weather in Devon from the movements of animals - Frogs

"The much croaking of frogs in the ditches and pools, &c., in the evening, foretells rain in a short time to follow."

Hewett 1900

Westcountry / Devon weather signs in the movements of animals - Swallows

"The chattering of swallows and their flying low about lakes and ponds denote rain."

Hewett 1900

Simon the outlaw and his bath

The Barle upstream of Simonsbath - Richard Mascall [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

"But there is a little oasis in this wild moorland; it is Simonsbath, a place with some green plantations near it and a few cottages in this wild but beautiful tract. It is situated on the bright little river Barle, and is surrounded by some fine old trees originally planted to shelter a rough inn that once stood there.

It takes its name from a deep crystal pool, just above the village, in which it is said that an outlaw named Simon used to bathe. The seat of F. Knight, Esq., M.P., the owner of Exmoor, is here also."

Valentine (undated)

Map - Simonsbath

Glonhilly (Goonhilly?) - Lugger of Croft Pasco Pool

Croft Pascoe Pool

  © Copyright Chris Towner and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

"In the midst of the dreary waste of Glonhilly, which occupies a large portion of the Lizard promontory, is a large piece of water known as the Croft Pasco Pool, where it is said at night the form of a ghostly vessel may be seen floating with lug sails spread. A more dreary, weird spot could hardly be selected for a witches' meeting, and the Lizard folks were always--a fact--careful to be back before dark, preferring to suffer inconvenience to risking a sight of the ghostly lugger. Unbelieving people attributed the origin of the tradition to a white horse seen in a dim twilight, standing in the shallow water; but this was indignantly rejected by the mass of residents. (Hunt's Popular Romances of England, 1st Series, P. 299.)"

Hope 1893

Map -  Croft Pasco Pool

[Here is an art project based on the story]

The Wicked Weaver of Dean Prior

"But first we must find the Hound's Pool, where a vicar of Dean Prior transformed the spirit of a wicked weaver, who had been a trouble to the village, into a black dog, and set him to bale out the pool with a nut-shell.  The story makes us think of Binjie in Cranmere, and Tregeagle, who, over the Cornish border, is emptying Dosmary Pool with a limpet-shell."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Hound's Pool
Map - Dean Prior
Map - Cranmere Pool
Map - Dosmary Pool

Crazy Well or Classenwell Pool

"Let us also make our way to Crazy Well (or Classenwell) Pool, which is not more than about two miles from Princetown. We take the Plymouth road for a short distance,and strike off across the turf for Harter Tor, passing through the remains of a considerable hut settlement on the way.  Ascending Harter Tor, bellow us on the west is one of Dartmoor's new lakes, Burrator Reservoir, lying in the distant valley like a blue gem in malachite.

The tower of Princetown Church will aid us considerably in our walk to Crazy Well Pool, as a direct line may be made from the church to Harter Tor, thence to Cramber Tor, and strieght to our destination.

Between Cramber Tor and the pool runs the Devonport leat; by keeping a little way to the left a bridge over the leat will be found, then continue the line - and - don't fall into Crazy Well Pool when you get there! It seems to lie at one's feet, at the bottom of a sheer bank which we must skirt to get at the water. It is most indisputably one of those moorland spots that you don't see until you get there. It is said to be bottomless, until a very dry summer dispelled the illusion, and the further fancy that it ebbs and flows is pretty rather than true."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Crazy Well Pool

The Mermaids Vengence - part 3

"...Penna's solace was his daughter. She had now reached her eighteenth year, and with the well-developed form of a woman, she united the simplicity of a child. Selina, as she was named, was in many respects beautiful. Her features were regular, and had they been lighted up with more mental fire, they would have been beautiful; but the constant repose, the want of animation, left her face merely a pretty one. Her skin was beautifully white, and transparent to the blue veins which traced their ways beneath it, to the verge of that delicacy which indicates disease; but it did not pass that verge. Selina was full of health, as her well moulded form at once showed, and her clear blue eye distinctly told. At times there was a lovely tint upon the cheek--not the hectic of consumptive beauty,--but a pure rosy dye, suffused by the healthy life stream, when it flowed the fastest.

The village gossips, who were always busy with their neighbours, said strange things of this girl. Indeed, it was commonly reported that the real child of the Pennas was a remarkably plain child, in every respect a different being from Selina. The striking difference between the infant and the woman was variously explained by the knowing ones. Two stories were, however, current for miles around the country. One was, that Selina's mother was constantly seen gathering dew in the morning, with which to wash her child, and that the fairies on the Towens had, in pure malice, aided her in giving a temporary beauty to the girl, that it might lead to her betrayal into crime. Why this malice, was never clearly made out.

The other story was, that Honour Penna constantly bathed the child in a certain pool, amidst the arched rocks of Perran, which was a favourite resort of the mermaids; that on one occasion the child, as if in a paroxysm of joy, leapt from her arms into the water, and disappeared...." [cont.]

Hunt 1903

Old Man of Cury - part 1

"MORE than a hundred years since, on a fine summer day, when the sun shone brilliantly from a cloudless sky, an old man from the parish of Cury, or, as it was called in olden time, Corantyn, was walking on the sands in one of the coves near the Lizard Point. The old man was meditating, or at least he was walking onward, either thinking deeply, or not thinking at all --.that is, he was "lost in thought "--when suddenly he came upon a rock on which was sitting a beautiful girl with fair hair, so long that it covered her entire person. On the in-shore side of the rock was a pool of the most transparent water, which had been left by the receding tide in the sandy hollow the waters had scooped out. This young creature was so absorbed in her occupation,--arranging her hair in the watery mirror, or in admiration of her own lovely face, that she was unconscious of an intruder.

The old man stood looking at her for some time ere he made up his mind how to act. At length he resolved to speak to the maiden. "What cheer, young one?" he said; "what art thee doing there by thyself then, this time o' day?" As soon as she heard the voice, she slid off the rock entirely under the water.

The old man could not tell what to make of it. He thought the girl would drown herself, so he ran on to the rock to render her assistance, conceiving that in her fright at being found naked by a man she had fallen into the pool, and possibly it was deep enough to drown her. He looked into the water, and, sure enough, he could make out the head and shoulders of a woman, and long hair floating like fine sea-weeds all over the pond, hiding what appeared to him to be a fish's tail. He could not, however, see anything distinctly, owing to the abundance of hair floating around the figure. The old man had heard of mermaids from the fishermen of Gunwalloe; so he conceived this lady must be one, and he was at first very much frightened. He saw that the young lady was quite as much terrified as he was, and that, from shame or fear, she endeavoured to hide herself in the crevices of the rock, and bury herself under the sea-weeds..." [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

Dosemary Pool - part 2

'..There is a ballad," Tregeagle; or, Dozmaré Pool: an Anciente Cornishe Legende, in two parts," by John Penwame. He has given a somewhat different version of the legend from any I have heard, and in the ballad very considerable liberties have been taken. It must, however, be admitted, that nearly all the incidents introduced in the poem are to be found in some of the many stories current amongst the peasantry.

Speaking of Dozmaré Pool, Mr Penwarne says:--

"There is a popular story attached to this lake, ridiculous enough, as most of those tales are. It is, that a person of the name of Tregeagle, who had been a rich and powerful man, but very wicked, guilty of murder and other heinous crimes, lived near this place; and that, after his death, his spirit haunted the neighbourhood, but was at length exorcised and laid to rest in Dozmaré Pool. But having in his lifetime, in order to enjoy the good things of this world, disposed of his soul and body to the devil, his infernal majesty takes great pleasure in tormenting him, by imposing on him difficult tasks; such as spinning a rope of sand, dipping out the pool with a limpet-shell, &c., and at times amuses himself with hunting him over the moors with his hell-hounds, at which time Tregeagle is heard to roar and howl in a most dreadful manner, so that 'roaring or howling like Tregeagle,' is a common expression amongst the vulgar in Cornwall. Such is the foundation on which is built the following tale. The author has given it an ancient dress, as best suited to the subject."...' [cont.]

Hunt 1903

Dosemary Pool - part 1

Reproduced courtesy of Francis Frith.


'MR BOND, in his "Topographical and Historical Sketches of the Boroughs of East and West Looe," writes -- "This pool is distant from Looe about twelve miles off. Mr Carew says:

'Dosmery Pool amid the moores,
On top stands of a hill;
More than a mile about, no streams
It empt, nor any fill'

It is a lake of fresh water about a mile in circumference, the only one in Cornwall (unless the Loe Pool near Helston may be deemed such), and probably takes its name from Dome-Mer, sweet or fresh-water sea. It is about eight or ten feet deep in many parts. The notion entertained by some, of there being a whirlpool in its middle, I can contradict, having, some years ago, passed all over in a boat then kept there."

Such is Mr Bond's evidence; but this is nothing compared with the popular belief, which declares the pool to be bottomless; and beyond this, is it not known to every man of faith, that a thorn-bush thrown into Dosmery Pool has sunk in the middle of it, and after some time has come up in Falmouth Harbour?

Notwithstanding that Carew says that "no streams it empt, nor any fill," James Michell, in his parochial history of St Neot's, says, -- "It is situate on a small stream called St Neot's River, a branch of the Fowey, which rises in Dosmare Pool"...' [cont.]

Hunt 1903

Benji and his sieve

[When asked of any folklore in the area while walking to the moorland boundary of Belstone Parish a Dartmoor Guide, born in Belstone, replied "well, there is Benji, of course, at Cranmere pool, who is condemned to empty the water with a sieve..." This is all he would say.]

The depth of bottomless Classenwell Pool

'Here we may turn to the right, by the Leat formed to supply Devonport with water, for Classenwell Pool, remarkable as the only lake of Dartmoor, naturally declared to be bottomless, in point of fact about 15 feet deep.'

Hope Moncrieff

The adventurs of Chery of Zennor - part 12

'...Well, next morning the child was washed, his eyes anointed, and the cow milked; she sent the boy to gather her some flowers in the garden, and taking a "crum" of ointment, she put it into her eye. Oh, her eye would be burned out of her head! Cherry ran to the pool beneath the rock to wash her burning eye; when lo! she saw at the bottom of the water, hundreds of little people, mostly ladies, playing,--and there was her master, as small as the others, playing with them. Everything now looked different about the place. Small people were everywhere, hiding in the flowers sparkling with diamonds, swinging in the trees, and running and leaping under and over the blades of grass. The master never showed himself above the water all day; but at night he rode up to the house like the handsome gentleman she had seen before. He went to the enchanted chamber and Cherry soon heard the most beautiful music.

In the morning, her master was off, dressed as if to follow the hounds. He returned at night, left Cherry to herself and proceeded at once to his private apartments. Thus it was day after day, until Cherry could stand it no longer. So she peeped through the keyhole, and saw her master with lots of ladies, singing; while one dressed like a queen was playing on the coffin...'

Hunt 1903

The Fairy Widower - part 2

'..."Well, young woman," says he, "and what are you after?"

"I am after a place, sir," says she.

"And what kind of a place do you want, my pretty young woman?" says he, with the most winning smile in the world.

"I am not particular, sir," says Jenny; "I can make myself generally useful."

"Indeed," says the stranger; "do you think you could look after a widower with one little boy?"

"I am very fond of children," says Jenny
.
"Well, then," says the widower, "I wish to hire for a year and a day a young woman of your age, to take charge of my little boy."

"And where do you live?" inquired Jenny.

"Not far from here," said the man; "will you go with me and see?"

"An it please you to show me," said Jenny.

"But first, Jenny Permuen,"--Jenny stared when she found the stranger knew her name. He was evidently an entire stranger in the parish, and how could he have learnt her name, she thought. So she looked at him somewhat astonished. "Oh! I see, you suppose I didn't know you; but do you think a young widower could pass through Towednack and not be struck with such a pretty girl? Beside," he said, "I watched you one day dressing your hair in one of my ponds, and stealing some of my sweet scented violets to put in those lovely tresses. Now, Jenny Permuen, will you take the place?"

"For a year and a day?" asked Jenny.

"Yes, and if we are pleased with each other then, we can renew the engagement."

"Wages," said Jenny...' [cont.]

Hunt 1903

The Fairy Widower - part 1

'NOT many years since a very pretty girl called Jenny Permuen lived in Towednack. She was of poor parents, and lived in service. There was a good deal of romance, or what the old people called nonsense, in Jenny. She was always smartly dressed, and she would arrange wildflowers very gracefully in her hair. As a consequence, Jenny attracted much of the attention of the young men, and again, as a consequence, a great deal of envy from the young women. Jenny was, no doubt, vain; and her vanity, which most vain persons will say is not usual, was accompanied by a considerable amount of weakness on any point connected with her person. Jenny loved flattery, and being a poor, uneducated girl, she had not the genius necessary to disguise her frailty. When any man told her she was lovely, she quite admitted the truth of the assertion by her pleased looks. When any woman told her not to be such a fool as to believe such nonsense, her lips, and eyes too, seemed to say you are only jealous of me, and if there was a pool of water near, nature's mirror was speedily consulted to prove to herself that she was really the best-looking girl in the parish. Well, one day Jenny, who had been for some time out of a situation, was sent by her mother down to the lower parishes to "look for a place." Jenny went on merrily enough until she came to the four cross roads on the Lady Downs, when she discovered that she knew not which road to take. She looked first one way and then another, and she felt fairly puzzled, so she sat down on a boulder of granite, and began, in pure want of thought, to break off the beautiful fronds of ferns which grew abundantly around the spot she had chosen. It is hard to say what her intentions were, whether to go on, to return, or to remain where she was, so utterly indifferent did Jenny appear. Some say she was entirely lost in wild dreams of self-glorification. However, she had not sat long on this granite stone, when hearing a voice near her, she turned round and saw a young man...' [cont.]

Hunt 1903

How Joan lost the sight in her eye - part 5

'...The wind was blowing so strong, and the pair were going so fast against it, that Joan was lifted off, over the hindquarters of the horse, and by luck she fell soft on the rushes at the very edge of the fowling-pool.

When she looked up, Joan saw whatever she had been riding going down the "bottom" in a blaze of fire, and the devil riding after, with. lots of men, horses, and hounds, all without heads. All the marketing was lost; and in getting through the bogs, Joan had her shoes dragged from her feet. At last she got to Trove Bottoms, and seeing the Bougd (sheep-house), she clambered over the hedge as she best could; got into it, and laying herself down amongst the sheep, she soon fell fast asleep, thoroughly wearied out.

She would have slept for a week, I believe, if she had not been disturbed. But, according to custom on Sunday morning, the Squire and his boys came out to the Downs to span the sheep, and there, greatly to their surprise, they found her.

They got the miserable woman home between them. The Squire charged her with having got drunk, and said her eye had been scratched out by a furze-bush; but Joan never wandered from her story, and to the day of her death she told it to all young women, warning them never to meddle with "Fairy Salve."'

Hunt 1903

How Joan lost the sight in her eye - part 4

'..."The work of the world" had Joan to find her way out of Penzance. She couldn't keep the road, she was always tumbling into the ditch on her blind side. When near the Fawgan, poor Joan, who was so weary that she could scarcely drag one leg after the other, prayed that she might find a quiet old horse on which she might ride home.

Her desire was instantly granted. There, by the roadside, stood an old, bony white horse, spanned with its halter.
Joan untied the halter from the legs and placed it on the head of the horse; she got on the hedge, and seated herself on the horse's back.

There she was mounted, "Gee wup, gee wisp; k'up, k'up, k'up." The horse would not budge. Busy were Joan's heels rattling against the ribs of the poor horse, and thwack, thwack went a thorn-stick over his tail, and by and by the old blind brute began to walk. Joan beat, and kicked, and k'uped, and coaxed, the horse went but little faster until it got to the top of the hill.

Then away, away, like the wind it went through Toldava Lanes, and it swelled out until the horse became as high as the tower. Over hedges and ditches, across all the corners that came into the road, on went the horse. Joan held on by the mane with both hands, and shouted, "Woa! woa! woey!" until she could shout no longer.
At length they came to Toldava Moor; the "ugly brute" took right away down towards the fowling-pool, when Joan, fearing he might plunge in and drown her, let go her hold...' [cont.]

Hunt 1903

North Tawton Prophetic spring

'In the parish is the barton of Bath, and famous for a pool which was usually dry in summer, but which " before the death of any great prince or other strange accident " would in the driest time become full of water, and so continue until the matter happened that, it thus foretold : so says Westcote, writing about 1630. The pool is on the left of the road from Bow to Okehampton.— Ibid., 217''

Hope 1893