Legend Land, Volume 2 | Page 6

moonless nights.
Strange, gruesome tales are told by those who, benighted or lost in the
fog, have stumbled home through the dark of a winter night across the
grim moorland. They tell--half dazed with fear--as they reach at last
some house and welcome human companionship, of the wild baying of
the hounds that drifted through the murk night to their ears, or of the
sudden vision of the pack passing at whirlwind speed across bog and
marsh urged onward by a grim black figure astride a giant dark horse
from whose smoking nostrils came flame and fire.
The description of this figure, "The Midnight Hunter of the Moor,"
seldom varies, although stories of the Wish Hounds differ from time to
time.
Some say that they are headless, and that their blood-curdling cries
seem to emerge from a phosphorescent glow of evil smoke that hovers
about the place where the head should be. Others describe them as

gaunt, dark beasts with huge white fangs and lolling red tongues.
Up on the grim wild moors it is not hard at midnight, through the
roaring of the wind, or in the stillness of a calm night broken only by
the weird cry of some nocturnal bird or the distant sound of a rushing
stream, to imagine, far away, the baying of this spectre-pack.
The old country folk hold that the man or beast who hears the devilish
music of the Wish Hounds will surely die within the year, and that any
unhappy mortal that stands in the way of the hunt will be pursued until
dawn, and if caught will inevitably lose his soul; for the dark huntsman,
they say, is the devil, whose power is great over that rugged country
between sunset and sunrise.
Even to-day some of the older people will tell you stories of escapes
they have had from the Midnight Hunter, or of the fate that befell some
friend or neighbour very many years ago who never returned from a
night journey across the moor.
But grim as it may be after nightfall, the country which the Abbot's
Way traverses is one of amazing beauty. You may pick up this old
track on the moors a mile or two from Princetown, or strike north to
join it from South Brent or Ivybridge station. To the west there is a
stretch of it clearly marked near Sheepstor where it crosses the
head-waters of the Plym.
Some think the old Way got its name because it was the means of
communication between the Abbeys of Buckfast on one side of the
moor and Tavistock on the other. Others say it was an old wool-trading
track to the west.
Dartmoor all around this district is at its best. It is a riot of rugged
boulder, fern, and heather, through which rushing streams, full of trout,
flow swiftly southward to the Channel. The Tors here are not the
highest of the moor, yet many of them rise well above the 1,500 feet
level.
It is a country easy of access, for the Great Western main line skirts the

southern edge of Dartmoor between Totnes and Plymouth, and railway
and coaching services enable the tourist to visit some of the most
remote parts of the moor in a day trip from Torquay, Dartmouth,
Teignmouth, or in fact any of the South Devon seaside resorts between
Dawlish and Plymouth. But the visitor who wishes to explore Southern
Dartmoor at leisure will find Newton Abbot the most convenient
centre.
[Illustration: The Abbot's Way]
[Illustration]

THE LOST LAND OF LYONESSE
There is a lot of truth mingled with the old legends that tell of the lost
land of Lyonesse, a fertile and prosperous country that once extended
west from Cornwall as far as the Scillies. According to those old
traditions a vast number of villages and 140 churches were
overwhelmed on that day, over eight hundred years ago, when the
angry sea broke in and drowned fertile Lyonesse, and now, as an old
rhyme has it:
"Beneath Land's End and Scilly rocks Sunk lies a town that Ocean
mocks."
On that fatal day, November 11, 1099, a mighty storm raged all about
our coasts, but the gale was of unparalleled severity in the West. Those
who have seen a winter gale blowing across the sea that now flows
above the Lost Land will know that it is very easy to believe that those
giant angry waves could break down any poor construction of man's
hand intended to keep the wild waters in check.
For Lyonesse, they say, was stolen by the sea gradually. Here a bit and
there a bit would be submerged after some winter storm, until came this
grim November night, when the sea made a clean sweep of the country
and rushed, with stupendous speed,