The story is well known.
A certain Childe, a hunter, lost his way in winter in this wilderness. Snow fell thick and his horse could go no further.
"In darkness blind, he could not find
Where he escape might gain,
Long time he tried, no track espied,
His labours all in vain.
"His knife he drew, his horse he slew
As on the ground it lay;
He cut full deep, therein to creep,
And tarry till the day.
"The winds did blow, fast fell the snow,
And darker grew the night,
Then well he wot he hope might not
Again to see the light.
"So with his finger dipp'd in blood,
He scrabbled on the stones—
'This is my will, God it fulfil,
And buried be my bones.
"'Whoe'er it be that findeth me,
And brings me to a grave;
The lands that now to me belong
In Plymstock he shall have.'"
The story goes on to say that when the monks of Buckfast heard of this they made ready to transport the body to their monastery. But the monks of Tavistock were beforehand with them; they threw a bridge over the Tavy, ever after called Guile Bridge, and carried the dead Childe to their abbey. Thenceforth they possessed the Plymstock estate.
The kistvaen is, of course, not Childe's grave, for it is prehistoric, and Childe was not buried there. But the cross may have been set up to mark the spot where he was found.