Myths and Literature
Dartmoor abounds with myths and legends. It is reputedly the haunt of pixies, a headless horseman, a mysterious pack of "spectral hounds", and a large black dog. During the Great Thunderstorm of 1638, the Dartmoor town of Widecombe-in-the-moor was even said to have been visited by the Devil.
Many landmarks have ancient legends and ghost stories associated with them, such as Jay's Grave, the ancient burial site at Childe's Tomb, the rock pile called Bowerman's Nose, and the stone crosses that mark mediaeval routes across the moor.
A few stories have emerged in recent decades, such as the "hairy hands", that are said to attack travellers on the B3212 near Two Bridges; and the "Beast of Dartmoor", a supposed large cat.
Dartmoor has inspired a number of artists and writers, such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Adventure of Silver Blaze, R. D. Blackmore, Eden Phillpotts, Beatrice Chase, Agatha Christie, Rosamunde Pilcher, Laurie King, and the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould.
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“The poets were not alone in sanctioning myths, for long before the poets the states and the lawmakers had sanctioned them as a useful expedient.... They needed to control the people by superstitious fears, and these cannot be aroused without myths and marvels.”
—Strabo (c. 58 B.C.–c. 24 A.D., Greek geographer. Geographia, bk. 1, sct. 2, subsct. 8.
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“Our American professors like their literature clear and cold and pure and very dead.”
—Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951)