This is the thirteenth item from Robert Dymond’s book: “Things New and Old Concerning the Parish of Widecombe-in-the-Moor and its Neighbourhood” (1876).
DARTMOOR, AND THE SINGERS OF BRENT.
THERE is much to reward the tourist who makes his way into the wildest parts of South Devon. Some of the scenery is of great beauty, even verging on grandeur. Dartmoor itself has many points of interest for its visitors. Its rock-crowned hills are most picturesque, its streams pretty, while in the autumn the colouring of the moor is really beautiful.
It is curious to find evident traces of human habitations on parts of the moor which are now deserted. In some long past days Dartmoor must have boasted of no inconsiderable population; at least, if one may judge by the hut circles scattered about the moor.On Hameldon, at no great distance from Widecombe, there are numerous small circles of stones enclosed within one large circle ;and they give the idea of huts, surrounded by a kind of protecting wall or fortification.
No one has arrived at any certain knowledge respecting the dwellers in these villages. The traveller can mentally re-peoplethem at his pleasure, and decide to his own satisfaction the conflicting claims of Druids and Phoenicians. It has been gravely asserted that barbarous religious rites were performed on the moor,and that cavities found in a granite Tor had once been stained with the blood of human victims. We must leave it to the possessors of“ strong imagination” to profess firm faith in this tale.
On the moor and its outskirts, the surface of the ground has beenartificially disturbed in many places. This, in all probability, was caused by the researches of the tin workers, who obtained the metalby the process known as “tin streaming.” Locally, these trenches or water-courses are sometimes spoken of as the work of “the old men,”but this expression does not throw light enough on the subject to shew us who were the busy labourers of those bygone times.
In some parts of the moor, peat, several feet in thickness, is found; but although it makes an excellent fuel, it has not beenutilised to any great extent. These peat grounds are impassable except on foot; and there are one or two portions of Dartmoor which almost defy the approach of any visitor, such is the depth of the mires.
The following story of the Brent Singers will shew the possible dangers incurred in bog-trotting. A convivial meeting hadtaken place on the outskirts of the moor. The Brent Singers were of the party, but at length bethought themselves that it was time totake their homeward way, and they accordingly started to cross a portion of the moor. Another guest left still later, but followed inthe same direction. All seemed calm and quiet until he reached “ Owley Gate,” which opened upon the moor. He afterwards relatedhis adventures, and said that, “When he come there, he heerd the doleful’st noise.” Most folks when they heard a doleful noise wenton the faster. Such, however, was not his conduct; he paused, and bravely cried, “Whu be yu?” Back on the night air came theresponse, “Us be the Brent Singers!” The solitary hero cheerfully called out, “ I know where yu be, yu be down in Glascombe Bottom.”From afar came the rejoinder, “Us doesn’t want to know where us be, us wants to know how to get out o’t.” On this the narratormade good his approach to the distressed minstrels, and averred, “Never did he see men in such proportion; there they was, all onem a stogged, and all on ’em a holla-ing.”
Happily, it is possible to visit the moor without following the Brent Singers into its inmost depths; and in bright summer weather a pedestrian will find that he can enjoy excursions, numerous as he pleases, on Dartmoor and its borders. Some of the most beautiful spots in and around the moor are easily reached, even by those whoare averse to much exertion. A road crosses the moor from Chagford to Prince Town, passing the curious Post Bridge, and leaving Wistman’s Wood at a short distance to the right. Another road runs from Ashburton to Two Bridges (here joining the one previously mentioned), and passes Dartmeet, which is wild and beautiful. But of all expeditions, the one most sure to reward the traveller is the drive through the Buckland grounds, beginning in the valley of the Webburn, and then following the course of the Dart.
There is much superstition still remaining among the rural population of Devonshire, in spite of the shrewdness that also exists. The most prevalent superstition is belief in the Evil Eye. It isspoken of under the term “ to overlook,” or “to do an injury.” An old woman, clearly suffering from rheumatism, set down her ailmentsto some one having “done her an injury for the sake of getting her bit of money.”
There is a great deal of humour and graphic power among the people of this West Country ; and the humourist who declared that “the further he travelled into the West, the more convinced was he that the Wise men came from the East,” gave a hit that may be the more cheerfully borne, because it is hardly felt to be deserved. [We may go beyond our fair contributor in her Just repudiation of this satire. As the wise men have been coming from the East so long, they may now fairly be expected to be found well-established in the West. With her estimate of the character of the people of Dartmoor we fully concur. True, they exhibit the defects pertaining to the dwellers in an isolated and mysterious land, but they combine with these a store of dry unconscious humour, whicha little tact and patience will draw forth to the intense interest of the listener. Mrs. Bray did this with great effect in her Talesand Traditions; but we believe the anecdote of the Brent Singers has not hitherto been told in print. The late Canon Kingsley—himself a native of the moor—-relates in Westward Ho! the savage doings of the Gubbinses in the reign of good Queen Bess ; and ifwe may credit the account of the Rev. Thomas Cox, in 1720, the moormen had not so far improved as to render an excursion amongst them so tempting as our correspondent has shewn it to be now. Of Dartmoor, this author observes, that “the inhabitants of it are the most ignorant and rustick people in the West of England ; strangers indeed to luxury and excess, but as much to good manners.” A century before this, Robert Herrick, the poet, quitting the society of the Court to settle in the then secludedVicarage of Dean Prior near Dartmoor, found himself surrounded by
“ A people currish, churlish as the seas, And rude almost as rudest salvages “—Ed).]