Drawings
The Witchs’ Year: January
Spinsters’ Rock
The Witchs’ Year: August
The Witchs’ Year: December
‘A Sea Witch’s Companion’ Frontispiece
Hare Head
Cuckoo Rock lies to the east of Burrator Reservoir on Dartmoor. Tradition has it that the rock is so-called because a local farmer always heard the first cuckoo of spring here. Another explanation focuses on the shape of the uppermost outcrop, which is said to resemble a bird.
According to Devon folklore, to hear the first cry of the cuckoo on one’s right was lucky; on the left unlucky. On hearing the first cuckoo in spring, it’s also good luck to run three times in a circle, sunwise, or as fast as possible to the nearest gate and sit on it. Failing to do this will lead to a year of idleness.
The Tolmen lies in the bed of Dartmoor’s North Teign River. According to local tradition, crawling through the hole from beneath is a cure for rheumatism.
The Legend Of The Golden Frogs
St. Mary’s Well in Bovey Tracey, Devon has a reputation for healing. Its other name is the Golden Well, which highlights its connection to the legend. One storm-dark night, the Virgin Mary, disguised as a poor traveller, was taken in by a woodcutter and his wife. In gratitude, she healed their sick child and gifted them a spring, which miraculously appeared near their cottage the next day, replete with golden frogs. The spring’s source in Trough Lane is now covered over and the nearby well built into the churchyard wall of St. Peter and St. Paul's Church associated the tale instead.
Another version depicts the couple as the sexton of the local Parish Church and his wife, who had just lost their child and were in mourning. The visitor is offered a glass of murky water, which leads to her divine intervention and the resulting spring.
Old Uncle Tom Cobley And All was inspired by the famous song ‘Widecombe Fair’. The Devon folklorist Theo Brown described the Grey Mare in the song as an ‘otherworld psychopomp’, transporting the dead to the afterlife. In my illustration, I’ve given the spectral riders a bit of 1920-30s gangster-style makeover.
It’s great to see the tale revived each year as part of the Halloween festivities in Sticklepath, a village on the northern edge of Dartmoor. This contemporary interpretation has echoes of the Welsh Mari Lwyd folk custom, which features a group of revellers carrying a horse skull door to door and demanding entry through song or some other performance.
The Witch-Hare
Moll Stancombe’s transmogrifying exploits were once legendary around Chagford. In hare-form, she consistently evaded capture by even the most skilful of hunters. Eventually, following the advice of a rival witch from Widdecombe, the hare was wounded in the leg by a specially selected hound (‘speyed bitch’), but it still got away. Harbering suspicions, the dog’s owner headed at once to Moll’s cottage, where, peering through the window, he saw the old woman tending to an injury in the precise spot where the hare had been attacked. Thereafter, Moll never shapeshifted again... at least not in public.
From Buckland-in-the-Moor and Tavistock come two variants of this motif. In both, the witch’s grandson acts as a go-between, regularly informing the hunter, for a shilling, of the animal’s whereabouts. Once more, the hare is never caught, despite being bitten by one of the hounds. In these tales, the boy’s prior cry of “run, Granny, run!” all but confirm the huntsman's suspicions, later verified by the sight of the child’s grandmother nursing her bleeding leg in the cottage that the hare had just entered. The Tavistock witch was later accused of cursing a young woman, causing her to spit pins. As punishment, she was burnt at the stake, a most unusual fate for suspected witches in England.
Theo Brown also recounts a witch-hare story about an old woman from Okehampton, who informed her husband that ‘he had just nearly shot her for dinner, while she was running around as a hare’.
References:
Bray, Mrs (Anna .Eliza). Traditions, Legends, Superstitions, and Sketches of Devonshire : On the Borders of the Tamar and the Tavy, Illustrative of Its Manners, Customs, History, Antiquities, Scenery, and Natural History, in a Series of Letters to Robert Southey, Esq, Vol II. J. Murray: London.1838: 277-78.
Brown, Theo. Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries 27, 1958: 264.
Crossing, William. Folklore and Legends of Dartmoor. Newton Abbot: Forest Publishing,1997:95-96.
“Tickler” Pulman, George Philip R. Devonshire Sketches: Dartmoor and its Borders, Exeter: Devon Weekly Times,1869: 88-9.
