He was contemporary at Widdicombe with Parson Davy here; but Davy was the older man, and had finished printing his great work before Rendle brought out his. It is curious that these lonely parishes had parsons then with so much industry and learning; but a book like Davy’s System of Divinity was a thing that might have been expected from a country parsonage, whereas the History of Tiberius was not, especially in such a place as Widdicombe.
Although it is within a walk of here, I seldom go there for the Fair. Last time I went, a dozen years ago, I found a poor show of sheep, nothing else for sale except some gingerbread, and very few people there. When the Cloches de Corneville came out, my brother thought that there must be some very fine bells at Corneville, to give rise to the tale; and he made inquiries, as he was in Normandy soon afterwards. People were telling him that he would only find some church bells of the usual kind there, ‘comme dans toutes les paroisses,’ and then a man struck in, ‘Aha, monsieur, c’est une pièce de théâtre.’ I think of that when people ask me questions about Widdicombe Fair, and I tell them that it is a comic song.
The song about Widdicombe Fair is probably an adaptation of a Somerset song, ‘Midsummer Fair,’ and there are several versions. The theme is briefly this:—Mr Pearse was not going to the Fair himself, and lent his old grey mare to some neighbours who were going, namely, Messrs Brewer, Stewer, Gurney, Davy, Whiddon, Hawk, Cobley and others. (Excepting Whiddon these are not Devonshire names.) As the mare did not return, he went up to the top of a hill to look round, and caught sight of her from there. She was then making her will, and died soon afterwards. Her ghost may be seen on the moor on stormy nights, looking ghastly white and rattling her bones. One may assume that she died from being ridden too hard, but the song does not distinctly say so.
Widdicombe is a very big parish of over ten thousand acres, but small in comparison with Lydford, which has over fifty thousand and is about the biggest parish in England. Two places in Lydford parish were transferred to Widdicombe by Bishop Bronescombe, 20 August 1260, on the ground that they were much too far away from Lydford church, namely, eight miles when the weather was good, and fifteen miles when it was bad, ‘tempestatibus exortis.’ In bad weather the people could not get across the moor, and had to go a long way round. These two places, Babbeneye and Pushylle, are now Babeny and Pizwell; and they are about eleven miles and twelve miles from Lydford church in a straight line on the Ordnance Map. Hurston is two miles and a half from Chagford church in a straight line, but people always call it two mile there and three mile back. The difference is in the hill.
The old waywardens used to fetch stone from a stream a long way off, to mend a piece of road near Hurston. Then an enlightened man appeared, and asked them why they fetched it from a distance when there was plenty close at hand; and they could not tell him why—they could only say that, time out of mind, it always had been fetched from there. So the enlightened man prevailed: some granite was blasted out close by, and the road was properly macadamized; and in twelve months’ time the road had disappeared. There was a peat bog underneath; and the sharp granite chips cut through the peat, whereas the river stones had rested on it, being smooth and round. I do not know the date, and cannot fix the place precisely, but have always understood that it was on a road from Chagford to Tavistock that is marked on Donn’s and Bowen’s maps and even on Cary’s as late as 1826, but now stops short near Metheral.
The older maps are much more chatty than the new. In the valley of the Bovey at the foot of Lustleigh Cleave, Donn’s map remarks, “This River has a subterraneous Passage.” That is where the stream goes underneath the rocks at Horsham Steps. In the next valley there is “Becky Fall, a Cataract” both on Donn’s map and on Cary’s. But the Fall has ceased to be a Cataract since the best part of the stream was turned away to
THE AUTHOR’S DESK