Stories from Dartmoor

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The moor

Most of the hill country is covered by raised bogs, which gave the land its name. To this day, it remains very dangerous to venture into these bottomless boggy areas. The southern moors are not quite so untamed. Traces can still be found here today that show that prehistoric people tried to wring cultivation out of the rough land very early on. Well-preserved stone circles, standing stones and stone avenues bear witness to the faith or misfortune of these early settlers. In the peripheral areas, the national park merges into a mountain landscape covered with dense, unspoiled deciduous forest. Steep slopes and small rivers characterize the landscape that prevailed here before human settlement and the associated deforestation.

 

The villages
Tiny villages are dotted all over Dartmoor. They are small settlements that have never been able to grow for economic reasons alone. This is because the land, with its moorland character, is anything but fertile or arable. The summer is short, the spring and fall very long and the winter extremely lonely. The notorious fogs of Dartmoor have their origins in the weather of the Atlantic. The frequent changes in the weather up here are harsh and unpredictable. It often takes no more than five minutes from a cloudless sky to complete fog. And it is not uncommon for visibility to be less than five meters. Anyone who is now surprised by the fog in the moor, which is already disorientating to the eye, loses all sense of direction. If it weren't for gravity, which at least pulls you to the ground, you would probably also confuse up and down. People and animals used to disappear in the moor without ever being seen again. The moor took its toll.

 

The devil and his hunting dogs
Life was always hard for the people up here, with many hardships and sacrifices. Fears and fantasies, belief and disbelief also contributed to the creation of all the stories that Devon's ghosts and spirits revolve around. Of the countless tales of brown shadows, demons and phantoms, the whist hounds are apparently the best known in the Dartmoor area. Tradition has it that the hounds are coal-black and the hunting pack, sometimes led by a dark huntsman on foot or on horseback. The only way to escape certain death is to throw yourself flat on the ground with your face down and form a cross the size of your body with your hands and arms. Praising God's name during this process would also be very beneficial for survival - or so it is said.

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