A Book of the West. Volume I Devon

That at least some of these huts belonged to "medicine men" is probable, from the finding in them of large, clear quartz crystals, such as are employed by several savage races as mediums for conjuring spirits.

Some of the hut circles are enclosed within "pounds." Many examples exist. The most noteworthy is Grimspound. The circumference of the wall measures 1500 feet, and it includes within it twenty-four hut circles. The wall is double, with small openings as doors into the space between, two of which are perfect; but for what purpose the interspace between the walls was left is most uncertain. It can hardly have been filled in with earth or rubble, as no traces of such filling remain. The entrance to the pound is in a very perfect condition. There is a hut circle outside the enclosing wall, just as in the prehistoric forts of Ireland.

A curious passage may be quoted from the gloss to the Law of Adamnan, which shows how women were treated among the early races.

In the hovels, very similar to our hut circles, a hole was dug in the floor from the door to the hearth about three feet deep. In this, in a condition of stark nudity, the women spent the day, and the object of the hole was partly decency and partly to keep the women in their places, so that – without joking – they were not on the same level as man. They did all the cooking, turning the spits. They made candles of fat, four hands'-breadth long. These they were required to hold aloft whilst the men ate and drank. At night the women were put to sleep in bothies like dog-kennels, outside the enclosure, so as to keep guard over their lords and masters, like watch-dogs.

In Wales, Iltyd the knight sent his wife out stark naked in a bitter wind to collect the horses and drive them into pound, whilst he lay cuddled up in the blankets.

Verily men had the upper hand then. Nous avons changé tout cela.

Near Post Bridge were numerous pounds containing hut circles; most have been destroyed – one only remains intact, at Broadun. Adjoining it was another, much larger; there the enclosing wall has been destroyed, but not all the hut circles. At Archerton a plantation of firs has been made within one of these enclosures, of course to the destruction of the monuments it contained.

What we learn from the hut circles on Dartmoor is that they were built and occupied by a people who, though they knew bronze, held it in high value, as we do gold.

II. Of the characteristic dolmen, which we in England call cromlech, we have but a single good example, that at Drewsteignton. Cornwall possesses numerous and fine specimens; they abound in Wales and in Ireland. But although we have one only remaining, it can hardly be doubted that formerly there were others, wherever the name of Shillstone (Shelfstone) remains, as near Modbury, and in Bridestowe.

The dolmen belonged to the period before bodies were burnt; it was the family or tribal ossuary. As it became crowded with skeletons, the earliest were unceremoniously thrust back to the rear, to make room for the last comers. The allée couverte in France, and the chambered barrows of Denmark, North Germany, Scotland, Ireland, and England, are but extensions of the dolmen to hold a larger number of the dead. The dolmens usually have a hole at one end, or a footstone that is removable at will, to allow for food to be passed in to the dead, and for the introduction of fresh applicants for house-room in the mansion of the departed.

Some of these holed dolmens have the stone plugs for closing the holes still extant. On Dartmoor in the kistvaens a small stone at foot or side was placed, to be removed at pleasure.

III. The kistvaen, or stone chest, is a modification of the dolmen, and is usually of a later date; when incineration was become customary, the need for such enormous mortuary chapels, or tombs, as the dolmens and allées couvertes ceased. The dead could be packed into a much smaller space when reduced to a handful of ash. Nevertheless, it is probable that some kistvaens belong to the period of carnal interment, and were erected for the reception of single bodies, which for some reason or other could not be conveyed to the family mausoleum. In Derbyshire carnal interment is found in cists, which are miniature dolmens, or kistvaens, sometimes standing alone, sometimes congregated together like cells of a honeycomb, each containing its crouched skeleton. On Dartmoor we have hundreds of kistvaens. Most have been rifled, but such as have been explored show that they belonged to the same people and period as those who occupied the hut circles.

In the fine kistvaen at Merivale Bridge, plundered and mutilated though it had been, a flint knife and a polishing stone were found; and flint flakes have been picked out of the ploughed soil round the Drewsteignton cromlech. At King's Oven is a ruined circle surrounding a demolished kistvaen, of which, however, some of the stones remain. A flint scraper was found wedged between two of the encircling stones. Some fine specimens are to be seen near Post Bridge.

IV. The stone circle is called by the French a cromlech. The purport of this is conjectural. Undoubtedly interments have been found within them, but none, so far, in those on Dartmoor. In the great circle on Penmaen-mawr there were interments at the foot of several of the monoliths, and, indeed, one of these served as the backstone of a kistvaen. Stone uprights surround many cairns, in the midst of which is a kistvaen; but such circles as the Grey

Wethers, Scaur Hill, and that on Langstone Moor, never enclosed cairns or kistvaens, and must have had some other purpose. Among semi-barbarous tribes it is customary that the tribe and the clan shall have their places of assembly and consultation, and these are marked round by either stones or posts set up in the ground. Among some of these tribes, if one of the constituent clans fails to send its representative, the stone set up where he should sit is thrown down. It is possible that the circles of upright stones on Dartmoor, not connected with cairns, may have served such a purpose. They are usually placed on the neck of land between two rivers. There are on Dartmoor about a dozen.

V. The stone row is almost invariably associated with cairns and kistvaens, and clearly had some relation to funeral rites. The stone settings are often single, sometimes double, or are as many as eight. They do not always run parallel; they start from a cairn and end with a blocking-stone set across the line. In Scotland they are confined to Caithness. The finest known are at Carnac in Brittany. It is probable that just as a Bedouin now erects a stone near a fakir's tomb as a token of respect, so each of these rude blocks was set up by a member of a tribe, or a household, in honour of the chief buried in the cairn at the head of the row. It is remarkable how greatly the set stones vary in size; some are quite insignificant, and could be planted by a boy, while others require the united efforts of three or four men, with modern appliances of three legs and block to lift and place them. Usually the largest stones are planted near the cairn, and they dwindle to the blocking-stone, which is of respectable size. There is no known district so rich as Dartmoor in stone rows. The number of these still remaining in a more or less dilapidated condition is surprising. Some five-and-twenty have been counted, and quantities must have been destroyed, and these the very finest examples, as the big upright stones lent themselves readily to be converted into gate-posts. Indeed of those that have been allowed to remain many have lost their largest stones.

The most important stone row is that on Stall Moor, a single range, that can be discerned even from Cornwood Station, and looks like a number of cricketers in flannels stalking over the brow of the hill. A fine one is on Down Tor; here the largest stones had been thrown down for the sake of removing them for gate-posts, and the marks of the levers were visible. Happily the Dartmoor Preservation Society interfered and re-erected the stones which had been cast down. At Drizzlecombe are three sets of stone rows leading from tall menhirs. The stone avenue that led from the Longstone, near Caistor Rock for over a mile, was wantonly destroyed by a farmer a few years ago, when building a new-take wall hard by. A good example is on the brow of the hill opposite Grimspound, but the stones are not large. The Merivale Bridge remains consist of two sets of double rows, the stones very small, but the rows fairly intact. But the most remarkable row of all is that near the Erme Valley, which, starting from a great circle of upright stones, extends for two miles and a quarter, descending a dip and crossing a stream to mount the opposite hill.

VI. The menhir, or tall stone, is a rude, unwrought obelisk. In some cases it is nothing other than the blocking-stone of a row which has been destroyed. But such is not always the case. There were no rows in connection with the menhir at Devil's Tor and the Whitmoor Stone.

That the upright stone is a memorial to the dead can hardly be doubted; it was continued to be erected, with an inscription, in Brito-Roman days, and its modern representative is in every churchyard. The menhirs, locally termed longstones, or langstones, must at one time have been numerous. Those round the moor have been carried away to serve as window-sills, door-jambs, even church pillars. Several places and moors, by their names, assure us that at one time these monuments were there.

Menhirs are still erected by the dolmen builders on the Brama-pootra, the Khassias, and always in commemoration of the dead. The Chinese hold that the spirits of the deceased inhabit the memorials set up in their honour; and the carved monoliths in Abyssinia, erected by the same race when it passed from Arabia to Africa, have carved in their faces little doors for the ingress and egress of the spirits. Holed menhirs are found in many places.

There are several menhirs on Dartmoor, as the Beardown Man (Maen, stone), near Devil Tor, in a wild and desolate spot far from the haunts of man; the highest is at Drizzlecombe, height eighteen feet, and weighing six tons.

It may well be doubted whether in any part of England such a complete series of remains of a vanished population exists as on Dartmoor, where we have their houses and their tombs. But the monuments are not of great size.

VII. Cairns on Dartmoor are numerous, but all the large ones have been opened and robbed at some unknown period. They would not have been dug into at the cost of time and labour unless they had rendered results of value. One ruined cairn with a kistvaen in it is still called "The Crock of Gold," but probably bronze was the metal chiefly found. A cairn opened on Hameldon yielded a bronze knife with an amber handle with pins of gold. A cairn at Fernworthy gave up an urn with a button of Kimmeridge coal, and a small bronze knife, together with another of flint. But the cairns were not always raised over the bodies of the dead. Sometimes, perhaps, only over the head, which has long since disappeared; sometimes over the place where the body was burnt, and sometimes as mere memorials.

What makes ancient Irish usage so valuable is that there we have traditional pagan customs recorded, and after Christianity was adopted the ancient usages were but slightly modified. I will quote a passage from Professor Sulivan that explains the various methods of interment. And it must be borne in mind that in Ireland the Celt was superposed on the Ivernian just as in Devon and Cornwall, and that in both the dominant race largely adopted the religious views and customs of the subjugated people.

"From the ancient laws and other sources we have direct evidence that the ritual of the dead varied with the rank, sex, and occupation of the deceased, and that it was more splendid and elaborate in the case of great men."19

The various kinds of monument were the Derc, the Fert, the Leacht, the Duma, the Cnoc, and the Carn.

The Derc was a hollow, a pit, or hole, dug in the ground; in fact, a simple grave.

The Fert was a rectangular chamber, composed of stones set upright, and covered horizontally with flags; in a word, a kistvaen.

The Leacht seems to have been a larger-sized kistvaen, a cromlech or dolmen, but a single upright stone was also called a leacht. When a number of persons were buried in a single mound, then a stone was set up in commemoration of each round the tumulus or cairn. A good specimen may be seen beside the road to Widecombe from Post Bridge. The cairn has been almost levelled, but the ring of stones remains.

The Cnoc was a rounded, sugar-loaf mound of earth, and the Duma was a similar mound raised over a kistvaen.

The Cairn or Carn was a mere pile of stones, generally made over a grave, but sometimes having no immediate connection with one. Here is a curious passage which will explain why some cairns contain no interments: —

"The plunderers started from the coast, and each man took with him a stone to make a carn, for such was the custom of the Fians when going to plunder or war. It was a pillar-stone they planted when going to give a general battle; and it was a cairn they made this time, because it was a plundering expedition… Every man who survived used to remove his stone from the cairn, and the stones of those who were slain remained in place, and thus they were able to ascertain their losses." —The Book of the Dun Cow.

Sometimes, after a battle, when it was not possible to carry away a body, the head of the man who had fallen was buried by his friends under a cairn, because the ancient Irish were wont to carry off heads as trophies; but to violate a cairn, even when raised by a foe, was regarded as sacrilege.

On Dartmoor, in addition to prehistoric antiquities, numerous rude stone crosses remain; some of these, if not all, indicate ways, and were employed as landmarks. Only one bears an inscription, "Crux Siwardi."

The whole of the moor, in the stream bottoms, is seamed with streamers' "burrows" and deep workings. It is not possible to fix their date. Throughout the Middle Ages stream tin was extracted from Dartmoor. Fresh activity was shown in the reign of Elizabeth. Beside the mounds may be seen the ruins of the old "blow-house," where the tin was smelted, and very probably among the ruins will be found the moulds into which the tin was run. I postpone what I have to say on the tin-working to a chapter on that topic in the ensuing portion of my book, on Cornwall.

Books on Dartmoor: —

Rowe (S.), Perambulation of Dartmoor (new ed.). Exeter, 1896. A caution must be given that the original work was written in 1848, when archæology was a matter of theorising, and when Druids and Phœnicians cut great figures. In reading Rowe's book the reader must pass over all this.

Crossing (W.), Amid Devonia's Alps. London and Plymouth, 1888. A pleasantly written little book, and free from the arrant nonsense of pseudo-antiquarians of fifty years ago, cooked up afresh.

Page (J. L. W.), An Exploration of Dartmoor. London, 1889. All the archæologic lore in this book must be rejected. Otherwise it is good.

Cresswell (B. F.), Dartmoor and its Surroundings. London, 1898. A handy 6d. guide, very useful, and commendably free from false theorising on antiquarian topics.

Spencer (E.), Dartmoor. Plymouth, 1894. A fresh and pleasant book, trustworthy as to the geology, but wildly erroneous as to the antiquities.

For the Archæology: —

Reports of the Dartmoor Exploration Committee of the Devonshire Association, 1894-9.

For the History of the moor: —

Reports and publications of the Dartmoor Preservation Society.

For the Crosses: —

Crossing (W.), The Ancient Crosses of Dartmoor. Exeter, 1887.

Crossing (W.), The Old Stone Crosses of the Dartmoor Border. Exeter, 1892.

For the Churches on the borders of Dartmoor: —

Chapter xix. of Rowe's Perambulation, new edition.

For the Flora and Fauna of the moor: —

Chapters xiv. – xvii. of the same.

For the Geology of Dartmoor: —

Ussher (W. A. G.), "The Granite of Dartmoor," in Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 1888.

CHAPTER XI.

DARTMOOR: ITS TENANTS

Forest rights exercised by the Duchy – Rights of the parishes of Devon to Dartmoor – Encroachments – Venville – Newtakes – Importance of the moor as common land – The four quarters – Drifts – A moorman's house – Vipers in the walls – Crockern Tor and Mr. Fowler – The "Wish Hounds" – The pixies – How an Ordnance surveyor was pixy-led – The moor in fog – Story of a pixy birth – Joe Leaman and the pixies – Notice on church gate – The boys and the plaster figures – The witch of Endor – Those born on the moor do not like to leave it – Freshets on Dartmoor rivers – The Dart – Ancient tenements – The Prisons – Story of an attempted escape – A successful escape – Cost to the country of the criminal class – Some effort should be made to prevent crime – Believer Day – Trout-fishing – Dartmoor in winter – The song of the moor.

Dartmoor consists of moorland running up to heights of over 2000 feet, a great deal of the area being enclosed, forming rough grazing farms, but much of it remains to-day what it was thousands of years ago, boulder-strewn ravines, through which rush impetuous streams, rocky heights crowned with huge blocks of granite, so weather-worn and piled up as to suggest to the stranger that some Titans had so placed them to serve as castles or to add a romantic touch to already wild scenery. Great sweeps of heather and furze-clad downs run up to these elevations, and on many of these the rude stone monuments lie scattered about in all directions.

The forest of Dartmoor became the property of the Princes of Wales only so far that forest rights were granted to the Black Prince and to the Princes of Wales for ever, without prejudice to such rights as had belonged from time immemorial to all Devonshire parishes with the exception of Barnstaple and Totnes. And the rights of Devonshire parishes were to take off the moor whatever was wanted save venison and vert, that is to say, not to cut down green trees. As of trees there are none, or hardly any, this exception could not be very greatly felt as a grievance, and as now there are no deer, one might have supposed that Devonshire people could exercise an unlimited right over Dartmoor. Such, however, is not the case. The Duchy of Cornwall, vested in the Princes of Wales, has claimed and exercised the power to cut away and reject the rights of every parish except such as are immediately contiguous to the moor, and to enclose and to shut out the good people of Devon from large tracts, one of which is made over to the convicts, another to the artillery, to fire across at long range. The tors also are given up to be hacked and quarried; and ponies and bullocks that have found their way on to the moors and do not belong to "Venville" parishes (that is to say, such as are contiguous to the forest) are pounded, and their owners fined for trespass. Thus the grant of forest rights, i. e., rights to hunt the red deer, have been converted to very exclusive rights to everything, and the Devonians, whose right was recognised to everything save venison and vert, has been reduced to nothing at all. But just as the Duchy encroached on the rights of all the good people of Devon, so was it also encroached upon. Before that the grant of forest rights was made to the Black Prince there were certain ancient tenements on the moor; those occupying them held under the king, and were absolutely independent otherwise. But these tenants had certain traditional rights, which they could put in force once only in their lives – on the death of the last holder the incomer might enclose ten acres of moor land, and hold it at a nominal rent. Thus these ancient tenements gradually expanded. But besides this the holders made larger enclosures, locally termed "new-takes," when the fancy came to them to do so, and they settled matters easily with the Duchy agents, to the advantage of both. Large landed proprietors managed to get slices by a little greasing of palms, and some very odd transactions took place whereby great tracts of land, and even farms, were transferred from the Duchy to other hands without the Princes of Wales being in any way benefited, or being aware that they were being robbed. But then – as the Duchy had taken from the people – had not such of the people as could contrive it a right to take back what they could?

All this is now so far a matter of the past that the Duchy is no longer robbed, it robs instead – curtailing on all sides the rights of those living in the low steamy lands to the pure air and wide wastes of that great well-head of health and life – the ancient Forest of Dartmoor.

During the abnormally dry summers of 1893 and 1897 Dartmoor proved of incalculable advantage not to the County of Devon only, but far further afield. When grass was burnt up everywhere, and water failed, then the moor was green, and was twinkling with dancing streams. From every quarter the starving cattle were driven there in thousands and tens of thousands. Drovers came from so far east as Kent, there to obtain food and drink unobtainable elsewhere.

Thousands and tens of thousands more might have been sustained there but for the enclosures that have been suffered to be made – nay, have been encouraged.

Dartmoor is divided into four regions, and over each region a moorman is placed. In every quarter of the moor a special earmark is required for the ponies that are turned out, a round hole punched in the ear, through which is passed a piece of distinguishing tape, red or blue, white or black. The ponies are much given to rambling; they pass from one quarter to another in search of pasture; but the moorman of each quarter can recognise those turned out on his region by the earmark. Sheep also and bullocks are turned out on the moor; but they have to be cared for at home in the winter, whereas the ponies brave the storms and snow. The flocks and herds are not driven on to the moor till summer, and are driven off at the approach of winter.

Although every farmer round has a right to turn out his beasts, yet the moorman expects a fee for each horse, bullock, or sheep sent out on the downs. Cattle, horses, and sheep sent upon the common lands that adjoin the forest are liable to stray on to the broader expanse, and in order to detect these and exact a fine for them certain drivings are ordered, locally called "drifts." The day when a drift is to take place is kept a profound secret till it is proclaimed early in the morning. Then a messenger on a fleet horse is sent round very early to announce it. On certain tors are holed stones, and through these horns were formerly passed and blown on such occasions. There are drifts for ponies, and drifts for bullocks. A drift is an animated and striking scene. Horsemen and dogs are out, the farmers identifying their cattle, the drivers and dogs sending the frightened beasts plunging, galloping in one direction towards the place of gathering. When all the beasts have been driven together, an officer of the Duchy mounts a stone and reads a formal document that is supposed to authorise the moormen to make their claim for fees. Then the Venville tenants carry off their cattle without objection. All others are pounded, or else their owners pay fines before being allowed to reclaim them.

Now and then the Duchy endeavours to extend its right over the commons belonging to contiguous parishes. Nothing is lost by asserting a right, and something may be gained. But when a drift is carried over such commons the farmers of the parishes rise up and repel the moormen, and battles with clubs and horsewhips ensue. Blows are given and returned; it is felt, and felt rightly, that encroachment must be resisted at all cost, lest it should serve as a stepping-stone for deprivation of further rights.

An old moorman's house was a picturesque object: built up centuries ago of granite blocks unshaped, set in earth, with no lime or cement to fix them, low-browed, with the roof thatched with rushes, the windows small, looking into a small court-yard, and this court-yard entered through a door in a high blank wall. On one side the turf stacked up, the saddles, the harness; on the other, a cow-house and stable, the well-house accessible from the kitchen without going from under cover, the well being nothing other than a limpid moor stream diverted and made to flow into a basin of scooped-out granite. The door into the house gives admission into an outer chamber, where is every description of odds and ends; where are potatoes, old barrels, infirm cartwheels, and the poultry hopping over everything. On one side a door gives admission to the kitchen, hall, parlour, all in one, lighted by a small window looking into the court-yard. Or, again, on the one hand is the cattle-shed, on the other the kitchen, all under one roof, and beyond the kitchen the common sleeping-chamber. Rarely is there an upper storey. The object of making these ancient houses so totally enclosed was to protect the dwelling from the furious storms. They were castles, but walled up against no other enemy than the wild weather. Nowadays these ancient houses are rapidly disappearing, and new, vulgar, staring edifices are taking their places – edifices that let in wind and water at every joint and loophole.