Read Ebook: A Book of the West. Volume 1: Devon Being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall by Baring Gould S Sabine

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Ebook has 1404 lines and 134867 words, and 29 pages

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.

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

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.

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 V?z?re 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.

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.

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.

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.

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