[152] Flint arrow-heads have occasionally been found upon Dartmoor.
“Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi; sed omnes illachrymabiles
Urgentur, ignotique longâ
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.”—Horace.
“They had no poet, and they died.”—Pope’s Translation.
[154] On the east of Dartmoor are some Druidical remains, one of which is a Cromlech, whose three rough pillars of granite support a ponderous table-stone, and form a kind of large irregular tripod.
[155] In some of the Druid festivals, fires were lighted on all the cairns and eminences around, by priests, carrying sacred torches. All the household fires were previously extinguished, and those who were thought worthy of such a privilege, were allowed to relight them with a flaming brand, kindled at the consecrated cairn-fire.
[156] The French prisoners, taken in the wars with Napoleon, were confined in a depot on Dartmoor.