Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.
Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
The carat character (^) indicates that the following letter is
superscripted (example: SCALE 4 F^T to 1 I^N).
* * * * *
A BOOK OF THE WEST
VOL. I.
DEVON
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
THE TRAGEDY OF THE CÆSARS
THE DESERT OF SOUTHERN FRANCE
STRANGE SURVIVALS
SONGS OF THE WEST
A GARLAND OF COUNTRY SONG
OLD COUNTRY LIFE
YORKSHIRE ODDITIES
FREAKS OF FANATICISM
A BOOK OF FAIRY TALES
OLD ENGLISH FAIRY TALES
A BOOK OF NURSERY SONGS
AN OLD ENGLISH HOME
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
THE CROCK OF GOLD
[Illustration: SWEET HAY-MAKERS]
A
BOOK OF THE WEST
BEING AN INTRODUCTION
TO DEVON AND CORNWALL
BY S. BARING-GOULD
VOL. I.
DEVON
WITH THIRTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.
LONDON
1899
PREFACE
In this "Book of the West" I have not sought to say all that might
be said relative to Devon and Cornwall; nor have I attempted to
make of it a guide-book. I have rather endeavoured to convey to
the visitor to our western peninsula a general idea of what is
interesting, and what ought to attract his attention. The book is
not intended to supersede guide-books, but to prepare the mind to
use these latter with discretion.
In dealing with the history of the counties and of the towns, it
would have swelled the volumes unduly to have gone systematically
through their story from the beginning to the present; it would,
moreover, have made the book heavy reading, as well as heavy to
carry. I have chosen, therefore, to pick out some incident, or some
biography connected with the several towns described, and have
limited myself thereto.
My object then must not be misunderstood, and my book harshly judged
accordingly. There are ten thousand omissions, but I venture to
think a good many things have been admitted which will not be found
in guide-books, but which it is well for the visitor to know, if he
has a quick intelligence and eyes open to observe.
In the Cornish volume I have given rather fully the stories of the
saints who have impressed their names indelibly on the land. It has
seemed to me absurd to travel in Cornwall and have these names in
the mouth, and let them remain _nuda nomina_.
They have a history, and that is intimately associated with the
beginnings of that of Cornwall. But their history has not been
studied, and in books concerning Cornwall most of the statements
about them are wholly false.
I have not entered into any critical discussion concerning moot
points. I have left that for my "Catalogue of the Cornish Saints"
that is being issued in the _Journal of the Royal Institution of
Cornwall_.
There are places that might have been described more fully, others
that have been passed over without notice. This has been due to no
disregard for them on my part, but to a dread of making the volumes
too bulky and cumbrous.
Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to many kind friends who have
assisted me with their local knowledge, as Mrs. Troup, of Offwell
House, Honiton; the Rev. J. B. Hughes, for some time Head Master
of Blundell's School, Tiverton, and now Vicar of Staverton; Mr. R.
Burnard, of Huckaby House, Dartmoor, and Hillsborough, Plymouth, my
_alter ego_ in all that concerns Dartmoor; Mr. J. D. Enys, whose
knowledge of things Cornish is encyclopædic; Messrs. Amery, of
Druid, Ashburton; Mr. J. D. Prickman, of Okehampton; and many others.
S. BARING-GOULD
LEW TRENCHARD HOUSE, DEVON
_June, 1899_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE WESTERN FOLK 1
II. VILLAGES AND CHURCHES 30
III. HONITON 43
IV. A LANDSLIP 60
V. EXETER 68
VI. CREDITON 79
VII. TIVERTON 101
VIII. BARNSTAPLE 122
IX. BIDEFORD 134
X. DARTMOOR AND ITS ANTIQUITIES 155
XI. DARTMOOR: ITS TENANTS 176
XII. OKEHAMPTON 208
XIII. MORETON HAMPSTEAD 225
XIV. ASHBURTON 248
XV. TAVISTOCK 266
XVI. TORQUAY 289
XVII. TOTNES 310
XVIII. DARTMOUTH 323
XIX. KINGSBRIDGE 337
XX. PLYMOUTH 352
ILLUSTRATIONS
SWEET HAY-MAKERS _Frontispiece_
From a photograph by Mr. Chenhall, Tavistock.
CLOVELLY FISHERMEN _To face page_ 16
From a photograph by the Rev. F. Partridge.
SHEEPSTOR " 30
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
HOLNE PULPIT AND SCREEN " 38
From a photograph by J. Amery, Esq.
HONITON LACE " 51
From specimens kindly lent by Miss Herbert, Exeter,
and Mrs. Fowler, Honiton. Photographed by the Rev.
F. Partridge.
HIGH STREET, EXETER " 68
From a photograph by the Rev. F. Partridge.
A COB COTTAGE, SHEEPWASH " 80
From a photograph by the Rev. F. Partridge.
EAST WINDOW, CREDITON CHURCH, BEFORE
"RESTORATION" " 82
From a sketch by F. Bligh Bond, Esq.
TIVERTON " 101
From a photograph by Mr. Mudford, Tiverton.
QUEEN ANNE'S WALK, BARNSTAPLE " 122
From a photograph by the Rev. F. Partridge.
CHAPEL ROCK, ILFRACOMBE " 128
From a photograph by Wellington and Ward, Elstree.
HARTLAND SMITHY " 134
From a photograph by the Rev. F. Partridge.
CLOVELLY " 151
From a photograph by the Rev. F. Partridge.
STAPLE TOR " 155
From a photograph by James Shortridge, Esq.
RIPPON TOR LOGAN STONE " 160
From a photograph by J. Amery, Esq.
BROADUN POUNDS " 165
BARROW ON CHAGFORD COMMON " 166
Drawn by R. H. Worth, Esq.
LAKEHEAD KISTVAEN " 168
From a photograph by R. Burnard, Esq.
URN FROM KISTVAEN " 172
Drawn by R. H. Worth, Esq.
VIXEN TOR " 176
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
LOWER TARR " 182
From a photograph by J. Amery, Esq.
TAVY CLEAVE " 197
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
TAW MARSH " 208
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
YES TOR " 212
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
THE CALCULATING BOY " 232
From a miniature in the possession of Miss Bidder.
GRIMSPOUND " 239
From a plan by R. H. Worth, Esq.
J. DUNNING, LORD ASHBURTON " 252
From a painting by Sir J. Reynolds.
OLD OAK CARVING, ASHBURTON " 258
From a photograph by J. Amery, Esq.
BRENT TOR " 266
From a painting by A. B. Collier, Esq.
ON THE DART " 310
From a photograph by the Rev. F. Partridge.
DARTMOUTH CASTLE " 323
From a photograph by the Rev. F. Partridge.
GRAMMAR SCHOOL, PLYMPTON " 354
From a drawing by F. Bligh Bond, Esq.
IN PLYMPTON " 354
From a drawing by F. Bligh Bond, Esq.
SUTTON POOL " 358
From a photograph by the Rev. F. Partridge.
ALMS-HOUSES, S. GERMANS " 366
From a drawing by F. Bligh Bond, Esq.
DEVON
CHAPTER I.
THE WESTERN FOLK
Ethnology of the Western Folk--The earliest men--The
Ivernian race--The arrival of the Britons--Mixture of
races in Ireland--The Attacottic revolt--The Dumnonii--The
Scottic invasion of Dumnonia--The story of the Slave of the
Haft--Athelstan drives the Britons across the Tamar--Growth of
towns--The yeomen represent the Saxon element--The peasantry
the earlier races--The Devonshire dialect--Courtesy--Use
of Christian names--Love of funerals--Good looks among the
girls--Dislike of "Foreigners"--The Cornish people--Mr. Havelock
Ellis on them--The types--A Cornish girl--Religion--The
unpardonable sin--Folk-music--Difference between that of Devon
and Cornwall and that of Somersetshire.
It is commonly supposed that the bulk of the Devonshire people are
Saxons, and that the Cornish are almost pure Celts.
In my opinion neither supposition is correct.
Let us see who were the primitive occupants of the Dumnonian
peninsula. In the first place there were the men who left their
rude flint tools in the Brixham and Kent's caverns, the same people
who have deposited such vast accumulations in the lime and chalk
caves and shelters of the Vézère and Dordogne. Their remains are
not so abundant with us as there, because our conditions are not as
favourable for their preservation; and yet in the Drift we do find
an enormous number of their tools, though not _in situ_, with their
hearths, as in France; yet sufficient to show that either they were
very numerous, or what is more probable, that the time during which
they existed was long.
This people did not melt off the face of the earth like snow. They
remained on it.
We know that they were tall, that they had gentle faces--the
structure of their skulls shows this; and from the sketches they
have left of themselves, we conclude that they had straight hair,
and from their skeletons we learn that they were tall.
M. Massenat, the most experienced hunter after their remains, was
sitting talking with me one evening at Brives about their relics. He
had just received a volume of the transactions of the Smithsonian
Institute that contained photographs of Esquimaux implements. He
indicated one, and asked me to translate to him the passage relative
to its use. "Wonderful!" said he. "I have found this tool repeatedly
in our rock-shelters, and have never known its purport. It is a
remarkable fact, that to understand our reindeer hunters of the
Vézère we must question the Esquimaux of the Polar region. I firmly
hold that they were the same race."
A gentle, intelligent, artistic, unwarlike people got pressed into
corners by more energetic, military, and aggressive races. And,
accustomed to the reindeer, some doubtless migrated North with their
favourite beasts, and in a severer climate became somewhat stunted.
It is possible--I do not say that it is more than possible--that the
dark men and women found about Land's End, tall and handsome, found
also in the Western Isles of Scotland and in West Ireland, may be
the last relics of this infusion of blood.
But next to this doubtful element comes one of which no doubt at all
exists. The whole of England, as of France, and as of Spain, was
at one time held by a dusky, short-built race, which is variously
called Iberian, Ivernian, and Silurian, of which the Basque is the
representative so far as that he still speaks a very corrupted
form of the original tongue. In France successive waves of Gaul,
Visigoth, and Frank have swept over the land and have dominated it.
But the fair hair and blue eyes and the clear skin of the conquering
races have been submerged by the rising and overflow of the dusky
blood of the original population. The Berber, the Kabyle are of the
same race; dress one of them in a blue blouse, and put a peaked cap
on his head, and he would pass for a French peasant.
The Welsh have everywhere adopted the Cymric tongue, they hug
themselves in the belief that they are pure descendants of the
ancient Britons, but in fact they are rather Silurians than Celts.
Their build, their coloration, are not Celtic. In the fifth century
Cambria was invaded from Strathclyde by the sons of Cunedda;
fair-haired, white-skinned Britons, they conquered the North and
penetrated a certain way South; but the South was already occupied
by a body of invading Irish. When pressed by the Saxons, then the
retreating Britons poured into Wales; but the substratum of the
population was alien in tongue and in blood and in religion.
It was the same in Dumnonia--Devon and Cornwall. It was occupied
at some unknown time, perhaps four centuries before Christ, by the
Britons, who became lords and masters, but the original people did
not disappear, they became their "hewers of wood and drawers of
water."
Then came the great scourge of the Saxon invasion. Devon remained
as a place of refuge for the Britons who fled before the weapons of
these barbarians, till happily the Saxons accepted Christianity,
when their methods became less ferocious. They did not exterminate
the subject people. But what had more to do with the mitigation of
their cruelty than their Christianity, was that they had ceased to
be mere wandering hordes, and had become colonists. As such they
needed serfs. They were not themselves experienced agriculturalists,
and they suffered the original population to remain in the land-the
dusky Ivernians as serfs, and the freemen, the conquered Britons,
were turned into tenant farmers.
This is precisely what took place in Ireland. The conquering
Gadhaels or Milesians, always spoken of as golden-haired, tall
and white-skinned, had subdued the former races, the Firbolgs and
others, and had welded them into one people whom they called the
Aithech Tuatha, _i.e._ the Rentpaying Tribes; the Classic writers
rendered this Attacotti.
In the first two centuries of our era there ensued an incessant
struggle between the tenant farmers and the lords; the former rose
in at least two great revolutions, which shows that they had by no
means been exterminated, and whole bodies of them, rather than be
crushed into submission and ground down by hard rents, left Ireland,
some as mercenaries, others, perhaps, to fall on the coasts of
Wales, Devon, and Brittany, and effect settlements there.
When brought into complete subjugation in Ireland, the Gadhelic
chiefs planted their _duns_ throughout the country in such a manner
as to form chains, by which they could communicate with one another
at the least token of a revival of discontent; and they distributed
the subject tribes throughout the island in such a manner as to keep
them under supervision, and to break up their clans. As Professor
Sullivan very truly says, "The Irish tenants of to-day are composed
of the descendants of Firbolgs and other British and Belgic races;
Milesians, ... Gauls, Norwegians, Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Normans, and
English, each successive dominant race having driven part at least
of its predecessors in power into the rent-paying and labouring
ranks beneath them, or gradually falling into them themselves, to be
there absorbed. This is a fact which should be remembered by those
who theorise over the qualities of the 'pure Celts,' whoever they
may be."[1]
[1] Introduction to O'CURRY (E.), _Manners and Customs of the
Ancient Irish_, 1873, I. xxiv.
The Dumnonii, whose city or fortress was at Exeter, were an
important people. They occupied the whole of the peninsula from the
river Parret to Land's End. East of the Tamar was Dyfnaint, the Deep
Vales; west of it Corneu, the horn of Britain.
The Dumnonii are thought to have invaded and occupied this territory
about four centuries before the Christian era. The language of the
previous dusky race was agglutinative, like that of the Tartars and
Basques, that is to say, they did not inflect their substantives.
Although there has been a vast influx of other blood, with fair hair
and white complexions, the earlier type may still be found in both
Devon and Cornwall.
Then came the Roman invasion; this affected our Dumnonian peninsula
very slightly; Cornwall hardly at all. When that came to an end, a
large portion of Britain had fallen under the sway of the Picts,
Saxons, and Scots. By Scots are meant the Irish, who after their
invasion of Alba gave the present name to Scotland. But it must be
distinctly understood that the only Scots known in the first ten or
eleven centuries, to writers on British affairs, were Irish.
In alliance with the Picts and Saxons, Niall of the Nine Hostages
poured down on Britain and exacted tribute from the conquered
people. In 388 he carried his arms further and plundered Brittany.
In 396 the Irish supremacy was resisted by Stilicho, and for a while
shaken; it was reimposed in 400. In 405, Niall invaded Gaul, and was
assassinated there on the shores of the English Channel.
In 406 Stilicho a second time endeavoured to repel the
Hiberno-Pictic allies, but, unable to do much by force of arms,
entered into terms with them, for Gildas speaks of the Romans as
making confederates of Irish. Doubtless Stilicho surrendered to them
their hold over and the tribute from the western part of Britain.
And now I must tell a funny story connected with the introduction of
lap-dogs into Ireland. It comes to us on the authority of Cormac,
king-bishop of Cashel, who died in 903, and who wrote a glossary of
old Irish words becoming obsolete even in his day.
"The slave of the Haft," says he, "was the name of the first lap-dog
that was known in Erin. Cairbre Musc was the man who first brought
it there out of Britain. At that time the power of the Gadhaels
(Scots or Irish) was great over the Britons; they had divided Albion
among them into farms, and each of them had a neighbour and friend
among the people." Then he goes on to say how that they established
fortresses through the land, and founded one at Glastonbury. "One
of those divisions of land is Dun Map Lethan, in the country of the
Britons of Cornwall." This lasted to A.D. 380.
Now Cairbre was wont to pass to and fro between Britain and Ireland.
At this time lap-dogs were great rarities, and were highly prized.
None had hitherto reached Ireland. And Cairbre was desirous of
introducing one there when he went to visit his friends. But the
possessors of lap-dogs would on no account part with their treasures.
Now it happened that Cairbre had a valuable knife, with the handle
gold-inlaid. One night he rubbed the haft over with bacon fat, and
placed it before the kennel of the lap-dog belonging to a friend.
The dog gnawed at the handle and sadly disfigured it.
Next morning Cairbre made a great outcry over his precious knife,
and showed his British host how that the dog had disfigured it. The
Briton apologised, but Cairbre promptly replied, "My good friend,
are you aware of the law that 'the transgressor is forfeit for his
transgression?' Accordingly I put in a legal claim to the dog." Thus
he became its owner, and gave it the name of Mogh-Eimh, or the Slave
of the Haft.
The dog was a bitch, and was with young when Cairbre carried her
over to Ireland. The news that the wonderful little beast had
arrived spread far and wide, and the king of Munster and the chief
king, Cormac Mac Airt (227-266) both laid claim to it; the only way
in which Cairbre could satisfy them was to give each a pup when
his lap-dog had littered. So general was the amazement over the
smallness and the beauty of the original dog, that some verses were
made on it, which have been preserved to this day.
"Sweet was your drink in the house of Ailil (King of Munster)!
Sweet was your meat in the house of Cormac!
Fair was your bread in the house of Cairbre!
O doggie, Slave of the Hilt!"
It was probably during the Irish domination that a large portion of
North Devon and East Cornwall was colonised from the Emerald Isle.
But to return to the Saxon conquest. When Athelstan drove the
Britons out of Exeter and made the Tamar their limit, it is not to
be supposed that he devastated and depopulated Devon; what he did
was to destroy the tribal organisation throughout Devon, banish the
princes and subjugate the people to Saxon rule.
The Saxon colonists planted themselves in "Stokes" mostly in the
valleys. The Celts had never been anything of a town-building
people; they had lived scattered over the land in their _treffs_ and
_boths_, and only the retainers of a chieftain had dwelt around his
_dun_.
But with the Saxons, the fact that they lived as a few surrounded
by an alien population that in no way loved them, obliged them to
huddle together in their "Stokes." Thus towns sprang into existence,
and bear Saxon names.
It is probable that the yeomen of the land at the present day
represent the Saxon; and most assuredly in the great body of the
agricultural labourers, the miners, and artisans, we have mainly a
mixture of British and Ivernian blood.
Throughout the Middle Ages, and indeed till this present century,
there can have been no easy, if possible, passage out of the
labouring community into that of the yeoman class--hardly into
that of tenant farmer; whereas the yeomen and the tradesmen, wool
merchants and the like, were incessantly feeding the class of
_armigeres_, squires; and their descendants supplied the nobility
with accretions.
There is, perhaps, in the east of Devon a preponderating element of
Saxon, but I have observed in the Seaton and Axminster district so
much of the dark hair and eye, that I believe there is less than is
supposed, and that there is a very large understratum of the earlier
Silurian. Perhaps in North Devon there may be more of the Saxon.
West of Okehampton there is really not much difference between the
Devonian and the Cornishman, but of this more presently.
It is remarkable that the Devonshire dialect prevails in Cornwall
above a diagonal line drawn from Padstow to Saltash, on the Tamar;
west of this and below it the dialect is different. This is probably
due to the Cornish tongue having been abandoned in the west and
south long subsequent to its disappearance in the north-east. But
this line also marks the limits of an Irish-Gwentian occupation.
The dialect is fast dying out, but the intonation of the voice will
remain long after peculiar words have ceased to be employed.
The "z" has a sound found nowhere else, due to the manner in which
the tongue is turned up to the palate for the production of the
sound; "ou" and "oo" in such words as "you" and "moon" is precisely
that of the French _u_ in "lune."
Gender is entirely disregarded; a cow is a "he," who runs dry, and
of a cock it is said "her crows in the morn." But then the male
rooster is never a cock, but a stag.
The late Mr. Arnold, inspector of schools, was much troubled about
the dialect when he came into the county. One day, when examining
the school at Kelly, he found the children whom he was questioning
very inattentive.
"What is the matter with you?" he asked testily.
"Plaaze, zur, us be a veared of the apple-drayne."
In fact, a wasp was playing in and out among their heavily oiled
locks.
"Apple-drayne!" exclaimed Mr. Arnold. "Good gracious! You children
do not seem to know the names of common objects. What is that bird
yonder seated on the wall?" And he pointed out of the window at a
cock.
"Plaaze, zur, her's a stag."
"I thought as much. You do not know the difference between a biped
and a quadruped."
I was present one day at the examination of a National School by
H.M. Inspector.
"Children," said he, "what form is that?"
"A dodecahedron."
"And that?"
"An isosceles triangle."
"And what is the highest peak in Africa?"
"Kilima Ndjaro."
"Its height?"
"Twenty thousand feet."
"And what are the rivers that drain Siberia?"
"The Obi, the Yenesei, and the Lena."
Now in going to the school I had plucked a little bunch of
speedwell, and I said to the inspector, "Would you mind inquiring of
the children the name of this plant?"
"What is this plant?" he demanded.
Not a child knew.
"What is the river that flows through your valley?"
Not a child knew.
"What is the name of the highest peak of Dartmoor you see yonder?"
Not a child knew.
And this is the rubbish in place of education that at great cost is
given to our children.
Education they do not get; stuffing they do.
They acquire a number of new words, which they do not understand and
which they persistently mispronounce.
"Aw my! isn't it hot? The prepositions be runin' all hover me."
"Ay! yü'm no schollard! I be breakin' out wi' presbeterians."
The "oo" when followed by an "r" has the sound "o" converted into
"oa"; thus "door" becomes "doar."
"Eau" takes the sound of the modified German "ü"; thus "beauty" is
pronounced "büty."
"Fe" and "g" take "y" to prolong and emphasise them; thus "fever"
becomes "feyver," and "meat" is pronounced "mayte."
"F" is frequently converted into "v"; "old father" is "ole vayther."
But on the other hand "v" is often changed to "f," as "view" into
"fü."
The vowel "a" is always pronounced long; "landed" is "lānded,"
"plant" is "plānt." "H" is frequently changed into "y"; "heat" is
spoken of as "yett," "Heathfield" becomes "Yaffel," and "hall" is
"yall."
"I" is interjected to give greater force, and "e" is sounded as
"a"; "flesh" is pronounced "flaish." "S" is pronounced "z," as in
examples already given. "O" has an "ou" sound in certain positions,
as "going," which is rendered "gou-en." "S" in the third person
singular of a verb is "th," as "he grows," "a grawth," "she does" is
"her düth."
Here is a form of the future perfect: "I shall 'ave a-bin an' gone
vur tü dü it."
There is a decided tendency to soften harsh syllabic conjunctions.
Thus Blackbrook is Blackabrook, and Matford is Mattaford; this is
the Celtic interjected _y_ and _ty_.
This is hardly a place for giving a list of peculiar words; they
may be found in Mrs. Hewett's book, referred to at the end of this
chapter, and collected by the committee on Devonshire provincialisms
in the _Transactions of the Devonshire Association_.
As a specimen of the dialect I will give a couple of verses of a
popular folk song.
"The gügü es a purty burd,
'Er zingeth as er vlieth;
'Er bring'th güde tidin's,
'Er tell'th naw lies;
'Er zucketh swate vlowers
Tu kaype 'er voice clear,
An' whan 'er zingeth gügü
Tha zummer drāeth near.
"Naw āll yu vair maidens
Wheriver yü be,
Your 'earts dü nat 'ang 'em
On a zicamore tree.
The layfe it will wither,
The mores (roots) will decay;
Ah me, I be waistin'
An' vaydin' away."
The Devonian and Cornishman will be found by the visitor to
be courteous and hospitable. There is no roughness of manner
where unspoiled by periodic influx of strangers; he is kindly,
tender-hearted, and somewhat suspicious. There is a lack of firmness
of purpose such as characterises the Scotchman; and a lively
imagination may explain a slackness in adhesion to the truth. He
is prone to see things as he would like them to be rather than as
they are. On the road passers-by always salute and have a bit of
a yarn, even though personally unacquainted; and to go by in the
dark without a greeting is a serious default in good manners. A
very marked trait especially noticeable in the Cornish is their
independence. Far more intimately than the inhabitants of any other
part of England, they are democrats. This they share with the Welsh;
and, like the Welsh, though politically they are Radicals, are
inherently the most conservative of people.
It is a peculiarity among them to address one another by the
Christian name, or to speak of a man by the Christian name along
with the surname, should there be need to distinguish him from
another. The term "Mr." is rarely employed. A gentleman is "Squire
So-and-so," but not a mister; and the trade is often prefixed to the
name, as Millard Horn, or Pass'n John, or Cap'n Zackie.
There is no form of enjoyment more relished by a West Country man
or woman than a "buryin'." Business occupations are cast aside when
there is to be a funeral. The pomp and circumstance of woe exercise
an extraordinary fascination on the Western mind, and that which
concerns the moribund person at the last is not how to prepare the
soul for the great change, but how to contrive to have a "proper
grand buryin'." "Get away, you rascal!" was the address of an irate
urchin to another, "if you gie' me more o' your saāce you shan't
come to my buryin'." "Us 'as enjoyed ourselves bravely," says a
mourner, wiping the crumbs from his beard and the whiskey-drops from
his lips; and no greater satisfaction could be given to the mourners
than this announcement.
On the other hand a wedding wakes comparatively little interest; the
parents rarely attend.
The looks of Devonshire and Cornish lasses are proverbial. This
is not due to complexion alone, which is cream and roses, but to
the well-proportioned limbs, the litheness of form, uprightness of
carriage, and to the good moulding of the features. The mouth and
chin are always well shaped, and the nose is straight; in shape the
faces are a long oval.
I am not sure that West Country women ever forget that they were
once comely. An old woman of seventy-five was brought forward to be
photographed by an amateur: no words of address could induce her to
speak till the operation was completed; then she put her finger into
her mouth: "You wouldn't ha' me took wi' my cheeks falled in? I just
stuffed the _Western Marnin' News_ into my mouth to fill'n out."
Although both in Devon and Cornwall there is great independence and
a total absence of that servility of manner which one meets with in
other parts of England, it would be a vast mistake to suppose that a
West Country man is disrespectful to those who are his superiors--if
he has reason to recognise their superiority; but he does not like
a "foreigner," especially one from the North Country. He does not
relish his manner, and this causes misunderstanding and mutual
dislike. He is pleased to have as his pass'n, as his squire, as a
resident in his neighbourhood, a man whom he knows all about, as to
who were his father and his grandfather, as also whence he hails. A
clergyman who comes from a town, or from any other part of England,
has to learn to understand the people before they will at all take
to him. "I have been here five years," said a rector one day to me,
a man transferred from far, "and I don't understand the people yet,
and until I understand them I am quite certain to be miscomprehended
by them."
The West Country man must be met and addressed as an equal. He
resents the slightest token of approach _de haut en bas_, but he
never presumes; he is always respectful and knows his place; he
values himself, and demands, and quite rightly, that you shall show
that you value him.
The other day a bicyclist was spinning down the road to Moreton
Hampstead. Not knowing quite where he was, and night approaching, he
drew up where he saw an old farmer leaning on a gate.
"I say, you Johnnie, where am I? I want a bed."
"You'm fourteen miles from Wonford Asylum," was the quiet response,
"and fourteen from Newton Work'us, and fourteen from Princetown
Prison, and I reckon you could find quarters in any o' they--and
suitable."
[Illustration: CLOVELLY FISHERMEN]
With regard to the Cornish people, I can but reiterate what has
already been said relative to the Western folk generally. What
differences exist in character are not due to difference of race,
but to that of occupation. The bulk of Cornishmen in the middle and
west have been associated with mines and with the sea, and this is
calculated to give to the character a greater independence, and
also to confer a subtle colour, different in kind to that which is
produced by agricultural labour. If you take a Yorkshireman from
one side of the Calder or Aire, where factory life is prevalent,
and one from the other side, where he works in the fields, you will
find as great, if not a greater, difference than you will between
a Devonshire and a Cornish man. Compare the sailors and miners on
one side of the Tamar with those on the other, and you will find no
difference at all.
There will always be more independence in miners who travel
about the world, who are now in Brazil, then in the African
diamond-fields, next at home, than in the agricultural labourer, who
never goes further than the nearest market town. The mind is more
expanded in the one than in the other; but in race all may be one,
though differing in ideas, manners, views, speech.
I venture now to quote freely from an article on Cornishmen that is
written by an outsider, and which appeared in a review.
"The dweller in Cornwall comes in time to perceive the constant
recurrence of various types of man. Of these, two at least
are well marked, very common, and probably of great antiquity
and significance. The man of the first type is slender,
lithe, graceful, usually rather short; the face is smooth and
delicately outlined, without bony prominences, the eyebrows
finely pencilled. The character is, on the whole, charming,
volatile, vivacious, but not always reliable, and while
quick-witted, rarely capable of notable achievement or strenuous
endeavour. It is distinctly a feminine type. The other type is
large and solid, often with much crispy hair on the face and
shaggy eyebrows. The arches over the eyes are well marked and
the jaws massive; the bones generally are developed in these
persons, though they would scarcely be described as raw-boned;
in its extreme form a face of this type has a rugged prognathous
character which seems to belong to a lower race."
Usually the profile is fine, with straight noses; and a well-formed
mouth, with oval, rather long face is general, the chin and mouth
being small. I do not recall at any time meeting with the "rummagy"
faces, with no defined shape, and ill-formed noses that one
encounters in Scotland.
There is a want of the strength and force such as is encountered in
the North; but on the other hand there is remarkable refinement of
feature.
I had at one time some masons and workmen engaged upon a structure
just in front of my dining-room windows, and a friend from
Yorkshire was visiting me. The men working for me were perhaps fine
specimens, but nothing really extraordinary for the country. One,
a tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed mason, my friend at once designated
Lohengrin; and he was the typical knight of the swan--I suspect a
pure Celt. Another was not so tall, lithe, dark, and handsome. "King
Arthur" was what my friend called him.
The writer, Mr. Havelock Ellis, whom I have already quoted,
continues:--
"The women are solid and vigorous in appearance, with
fully-developed breasts and hips, in marked contrast with the
first type, but resembling women in Central and Western France.
Indeed, the people of this type generally recall a certain
French type, grave, self-possessed, deliberate in movement,
capable and reliable in character. I mention these two types
because they seem to me to represent the two oldest races of
Cornwall, or, indeed, of England. The first corresponds to
the British neolithic man, who held sway in England before
the so-called Celts arrived, and who probably belonged to the
so-called Iberian race; in pictures of Spanish women of the best
period, indeed, and in some parts of modern Spain, we may still
see the same type. The second corresponds to the more powerful,
and as his remains show, the more cultured and æsthetic Celt,
who came from France and Belgium.... When these types of
individual are combined, the results are often very attractive.
We then meet with what is practically a third type: large,
dignified, handsome people, distinguished from the Anglo-Saxon
not only by their prominent noses and well-formed chins, but
also by their unaffected grace and refinement of manner. In many
a little out-of-the-world Cornish farm I have met with the men
of this type, and admired the distinction of their appearance
and bearing, their natural instinctive courtesy, their kindly
hospitality. It was surely of such men that Queen Elizabeth
thought when she asserted that all Cornishmen are courtiers.
"I do not wish to insist too strongly on these types which
blend into one another, and may even be found in the same
family. The Anglo-Saxon stranger, who has yet had no time to
distinguish them, and who comes, let us say, from a typically
English county like Lancashire, still finds much that is
unfamiliar in the people he meets. They strike him as rather
a dark race, lithe in movement, and their hands and feet are
small. Their hair has a tendency to curl, and their complexions,
even those of the men, are often incomparable. The last
character is due to the extremely moist climate of Cornwall,
swept on both sides by the sea-laden Atlantic. More than by
this, however, the stranger accustomed to the heavy, awkward
ways of the Anglo-Saxon clodhopper will be struck by the bright,
independent intelligence and faculty of speech which he finds
here. No disguise can cover the rusticity of the English rustic;
on Cornish roads one may often meet a carman whose clear-cut
face, bushy moustache, and general bearing might easily add
distinction to Pall Mall."
There are parts of Devon and of Cornwall where the dark type
prevails. "A black grained man" is descriptive of one belonging to
the Veryan district, and dark hair and eyes, and singular beauty
are found about the Newlyn and St. Ives districts. The darkest type
has been thrust into corners. In a fold of Broadbury Down in Devon,
in the village of Germansweek, the type is mainly dark; in that of
North Lew, in another lap of the same down, it is light. It has
been noticed that a large patch of the dusky race has remained in
Bedfordshire.
The existence of the dark eyes and hair and fine profiles has been
attempted to be explained by the fable that a Spanish vessel was
wrecked now here, now there, from the Armada, and that the sailors
remained and married the Cornish women. I believe that this is
purely a fable. The same attempt at solution of the existence of the
same type in Ireland and in Scotland has been made, because people
would not understand that there could be any other explanation of
the phenomenon.
I have been much struck in South Wales, on a market day, when
observing the people, to see how like they were in build, and
colour, and manner, and features to those one might encounter at a
fair in Tavistock, Launceston, or Bodmin.
I positively must again quote Mr. Havelock Ellis on the Cornish
woman, partly because his description is so charmingly put, but also
because it is so incontestably true.
"The special characters of the race are often vividly shown
in its women. I am not aware that they have ever played a
large part in the world, whether in life or art. But they are
memorable enough for their own qualities. Many years ago, as a
student in a large London hospital, I had under my care a young
girl who came from labour of the lowest and least skilled order.
Yet there was an instinctive grace and charm in all her ways and
speech which distinguished her utterly from the rough women of
her class. I was puzzled then over that delightful anomaly. In
after years, recalling her name and her appearance, I knew that
she was Cornish, and I am puzzled no longer. I have since seen
the same ways, the same soft, winning speech equally unimpaired
by hard work and rude living. The Cornish woman possesses an
adroitness and self-possession, a modulated readiness of speech,
far removed from the awkward heartiness of the Anglo-Saxon
woman, the emotional inexpressiveness of the Lancashire lass
whose eyes wander around as she seeks for words, perhaps
completing her unfinished sentence by a snap of the fingers.
The Cornish woman--at all events while she is young and not
submerged by the drudgery of life--exhibits a certain delightful
volubility and effervescence. In this respect she has some
affinity with the bewitching and distracting heroines of Thomas
Hardy's novels, doubtless because the Wessex folk of the South
Coast are akin to the Cornish. The Cornish girl is inconsistent
without hypocrisy; she is not ashamed of work, but she is very
fond of jaunts, and on such occasions she dresses herself, it
would be rash to say with more zeal than the Anglo-Saxon maiden,
but usually with more success. She is an assiduous chapel-goer,
equally assiduous in flirtations when chapel is over. The pretty
Sunday-school teacher and leader of the local Band of Hope
cheerfully confesses as she drinks off the glass of claret you
offer her that she is but a poor teetotaller. The Cornish woman
will sometimes have a baby before she is legally married; it is
only an old custom of the county, though less deeply rooted than
the corresponding custom in Wales."[2]
[2] _The New Century Review_, April, 1897.
The Cornish are, like the Welsh, intensely religious, but according
to their idea religion is emotionalism and has hardly enough to do
with morality.
"So Mr. So-and-So is dead," in reference to a local preacher. "I
fear he led a very loose life."
"Ah! perhaps so, but he was a sweet Christian."
Here is something illustrative at once of West Country religion and
dialect. I quote from an amusing paper on the "Recollections of a
Parish Worker" in the _Cornish Magazine_ (1898):--
"'How do you like the vicar?' I asked. 'Oh, he's a lovely man,'
she answered, 'and a 'ansome praicher--and such a voice! But
did 'ee hear how he lost un to-day? Iss, I thought he would
have failed all to-wance, an' that wad have bin a gashly job.
But I prayed for un an' the Lord guv it back to un again, twice
as loud, an' dedn't 'ee holler! But 'ee dedn't convart me. I
convarted meself. Iss a ded. I was a poor wisht bad woman. Never
went to a place of worship. Not for thirty years a hadn't a
bin. One day theer came word that my brother Willum was hurted
to the mine. So I up an' went to un an' theer he was, all scat
abroad an' laid out in scritches. He was in a purty stank, sure
'nuff. But all my trouble was his poor sowl. I felt I must get
he convarted before he passed. I went where he was to, an' I
shut home the door, an' I hollered an' I rassled an' I prayed to
him, an' he nivver spoke. I got no mouth spaich out of him at
awl, but I screeched and screeched an' prayed until I convarted
myself! An' then I be to go to church. Iss, we awl have to come
to it, first an' last, though I used to say for christenings an'
marryin's an' berrin's we must go to church, but for praichin'
an' ennytheng for tha nex' wurld give me the chapel; still, I
waanted to go to church an' laive everybody knaw I wur proper
chaanged. So I pitched to put up my Senday go-to-mittun bonnet,
an' I went. An' when I got theer aw! my blessed life 'twas
Harvest Thanksgivin', an' when I saw the flowers an' the fruit
an' the vegetables an' the cotton wool I was haived up on end!'
And heaved up on the right end she was."
The table of Commandments is with the Cornish not precisely that
of Moses. It skips, or treats very lightly, the seventh, but it
comprises others not found in Scripture: "Thou shalt not drink any
alcohol," and "Thou shalt not dance."
On Old Christmas Day, in my neighbourhood, a great temperance
meeting was held. A noted speaker on teetotalism was present and
harangued. A temperance address is never relished without some
horrible example held up to scorn. Well, here it was. "At a certain
place called ----, last year, as Christmas drew on, the Guardians
met to decide what fare should be afforded to the paupers for
Christmas Day. Hitherto it had been customary for them to be given
for their dinner a glass of ale--a glass of ale. I repeat it--at
public cost--a glass of ale apiece. On that occasion the Guardians
unanimously agreed that the paupers should have cocoa, and not
ale. Then up stood the Rector--the Rector, I repeat--and in a loud
and angry voice declared: 'Gentlemen, if you will not give them
their drop of ale, I will.' And he--he, a minister of the gospel
or considering himself as such."--(A shudder and a groan.) "I tell
you more--I tell you something infinitely worse--he sent up to the
work-house a dozen of his old crusted port." (Cries of "Shame!
shame!" and hisses.)
_That_, if you please, was the unpardonable sin.
If we are to look anywhere for local characteristics in the music
of the people in any particular part of England, we may surely
expect to find them in the western counties of Somerset, Devon, and
Cornwall. These three counties have hitherto been out of the beaten
track; they are more encompassed by the sea than others, and lead
only to the Land's End.
And as a matter of fact, a large proportion of the melodies that
have been collected from the peasantry in this region seem to have
kept their habitation, and so to be unknown elsewhere.
I take it for granted that they are, as a rule, home productions.
The origin of folk-song has been much debated, and it need not
be gone into now. But it would be vain to search for local
characteristics in anything that has not a local origin.
In folk-song, then, we may expect to see reflected the
characteristics of the race from which it has sprung, and, as in the
counties of Devon and Cornwall on one side and Somersetshire on the
other, we are brought into contact with two, at least, races--the
British and the Saxon--we do find two types of melody very distinct.
Of course, as with their dialects, so with their melodies, the
distinctions are sometimes marked, and sometimes merged in each
other. The Devonshire melodies have some affinity with those
of Ireland, whilst the Somersetshire tunes exhibit a stubborn
individuality--a roughness, indeed, which is all their own.
Taking first the Devonshire songs, I think one cannot fail to
be struck with the exceeding grace and innate refinement which
distinguish them. These qualities are not always perceptible in the
performance of the songs by the untutored singers; nor do the words
convey, as a rule, any such impressions, but evident enough when
you come to adjust to their proper form the music which you have
succeeded in jotting down. It surprises you. You are not prepared
for anything like original melody, or for anything gentle or
tender. But the Devonshire songs are so. Their thought is idyllic.
Through shady groves melodious with song, the somewhat indolent
lover of Nature wanders forth without any apparent object save
that of "breathing the air," and (it must be added) of keeping an
open eye for nymphs, one of whom seldom fails to be seeking the
same seclusion. Mutual advances ensue; no explanations are needed;
constancy is neither vowed nor required. The casual lovers meet and
part, and no sequel is appended to the artless tale.
Sentiment is the staple of Devonshire folk-song; it is a trifle
unwholesome, but it is unmistakably graceful and charming. Take such
songs as "By chance it was," "The Forsaken Maiden," "The Gosshawk,"
"Golden Furze;" surely there is a gush of genuine melody and the
spirit of poetry in such tunes.
In some respects the folk-song of Devonshire is rather
disappointing. There is no commemoration, no appreciation, of her
heroes. The salt sea-breeze does not seem to reach inland, save to
whisper in a wailing tone of "The Drowned Lover," or the hapless
"Cabin Boy." Sea-songs may be in her ports, but they were not born
there.
Nor are the joys of the chase proclaimed with such robustness as
elsewhere, any more than are the pleasures and excitements of the
flowing bowl. This may be attributed to the same refinement of
character of which I have spoken.
A pastoral and peace-loving community will not be expected to
develop any special sense of humour. Devonshire is by no means
deficient in it, but it is of a quiet sort, a sly humour something
allied to what the Scotch call "pawky," of which "Widicombe Fair"
is as good an example as can be had. Of what may be called the
religious element, save in Christmas and Easter carols, I have never
discovered any trace.
The Rev. H. Fleetwood Sheppard, who has spent ten years in
collecting the melodies of Devon and Cornwall, says of them, "I have
found them delightful, full of charm and melody. I never weary of
them. They are essentially poetical, but they are also essentially
the songs of sentiment, and their one pervading, almost unvarying
theme is--The Eternal Feminine."
When we pass into Somersetshire the folk-music assumes quite a
different character. The tenderness, the refinement have vanished.
Judging from their songs, we might expect to find the Somersetshire
folk bold, frank, noisy, independent, self-assertive; and this
view would be quite in keeping with their traditional character.
In Shakespeare's time bandogs and bull baiting were the special
delight of the country gentry,[3] and Fuller describes the natives
of Taunton Dean as "rude, rich, and conceited." If one turn to the
music, "Richard of Taunton Dean," or "Jan's Courtship," "George
Riddler's Oven," and the like, are in entire keeping with the
character of the people as thus depicted. There is vigour and _go_
in their songs, but no sweetness; ruggedness, no smoothness at all;
and it is precisely this latter quality that marks the Cornish and
Devonshire airs.
[3] See M. DRAYTON'S _Polyolbion_ on this.
Take such a tune as that to which the well-known hunting song of
Devon, "Arscott of Tetcott," is wedded. The air is a couple of
centuries older than the words, for the Arscott whom the song
records died in 1788, though we can only trace the tune back
to D'Urfey at the end of the seventeenth century. The music is
impetuous, turbulent, excited, it might be the chasing the red
deer on Exmoor; the hunt goes by with a rush like a whirlwind to a
semi-barbarous melody, which resembles nothing so much as that of
the spectral chase in Der Freischütz.
But Somersetshire song can be tender at times, though not quite
with the bewitching grace of Devonia. There is a charming air which
found its way from the West up to London some sixty years ago, the
original words of which are lost, but the tune became immensely
popular under the title of "All round my hat," a vulgar ditty sung
by all little vulgar boys in the streets. The tune is well worth
preserving. It is old, and there is a kind of wail about it which is
touching.
But who were the composers of these folk-airs? In the old desks in
west galleries of churches remain here and there piles of MS. music:
anthems, and, above all, carols, the composition of local musicians
unknown beyond their immediate neighbourhood, and now unknown even
by name.
A few years ago I was shown such a pile from Lifton Church. I saw
another great library, as I may call it, that was preserved in the
rack in the ceiling of a cottage at Sheepstor, the property of
an old fiddler, now dead. I saw a third in Holne parish. I have
seen stray heaps elsewhere. Mr. Heath, of Redruth, published two
collections from Cornwall and one from Devon, the latter from
the Lifton store in part, to which I had directed his attention.
I cannot doubt that some of the popular tunes that are found
circulating among our old singers--or to be more exact, were
found--were the composition of these ancient village musicians.
Alas! the American organ and the strident harmonium came in and
routed out the venerable representatives of a musical past; and the
music-hall piece is now driving away all the sound old traditional
melody, and the last of the ancient conservators of folk-song makes
his bow, and says:--
"I be going, I reckon, full mellow,
To lay in the churchyard my head,
So say--God be wi' you, old fellow!
The last of the zingers is dead."
NOTE.--For the history of Devon: WORTH (R. N.), _History of
Devonshire_. London, 1886. For Devonshire dialect: HEWETT(S.),
_The Peasant Speech of Devon_. E. Stock. London, 1892. For
Devonshire folk-music: _Songs of the West_. Methuen. London,
1895. (3rd ed.) _A Garland of Country Song_. Methuen. London,
1895.
For most of what has been said above on the folk-songs of Devon
I am indebted to the Rev. H. Fleetwood Sheppard, who has made it
his special study.