mxleader on 2/4/2023 at 04:42
I've been watching the Edwardian Farm series from the BBC after watching the Tudor Farm and Victorian Farm series. They are pretty enjoyable to watch and I've watched some several times. During the Edwardian Farm October episode there is a professor (Ronald Hutton) who joined them for a feast and tells a poem related to the season and the area they were in. I don't know if it is something he wrote or if it is old folklore from that area. I recorded it from the TV and played it over and over until got it written down as accurately as I could. For the life of my I can't find any info on where it's from or what books it might be in. Any ideas what the title might be or where I might find it written in a book?
“This was the great festival that opened winter
The most terrifying of all the seasons
Perhaps the one which most people died
Here in West Devon,
this is the season you start to feel Dartmoor
Stretching out it’s mighty claws towards you in the night
This is the season when the wild geese come over
And their voices and the voice of wind wailing about the moor
You hear the Gabriel hounds, the witch towns
The hounds of Hell, Dark and with fiery eyes
And tongues coming for you in the night
And as you past the abandoned mine shafts, the moor
And hear the air trapped, sobbing within
You hear the voices, the souls in Hell
Writhing in torment
And that’s where you know Christmas is on it’s way!”
Cipheron on 22/4/2023 at 12:54
The reference to "abandoned mine shafts" definitely dates this as a modern poem, since it's referring to the collapse of the mining industry in the region, which occurred from the mid 1980s - 1990s.
(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_Cornwall_and_Devon)
Quote:
On the wall outside the gate is some graffiti dating from 1999:
> Cornish lads are fishermen and Cornish lads are miners too.
> But when the fish and tin are gone, what are the Cornish boys to do?
(This is from the chorus of the song 'Cornish Lads' by Cornish singer/songwriter Roger Bryant, written at the time of the closure of Geevor Mine.
...
The collapse of the International Tin Council in 1986 was the end for Cornish and Devonian tin mining. The most recent mine in Devon to produce tin ore was Hemerdon Mine near Plympton in the 1980s. The last Cornish tin mine in production at South Crofty closed in 1998.
So it's definitely not an old poem. I'd guess he wrote it for the event. His published books however, cover historical time periods much earlier than the references in the poem would be relevant to. It might have gotten published in some magazine or other, but probably wouldn't fit in any of his books.
mxleader on 30/4/2023 at 04:07
Interesting. I haven't read any of his works yet. There was one line in the poem that I couldn't make out and only guessed the last part.
You hear the Gabriel hounds, the witch towns
I couldn't make out the last part of the line. Is it witch towns or witch tombs or something else entirely? I listened to it over and over again and couldn't make out what he said. I think that some of it has to do with the recording quality but also somewhat related to the accent and dialect I'm not used to hearing.
Cipheron on 30/4/2023 at 07:40
Quote Posted by mxleader
Interesting. I haven't read any of his works yet. There was one line in the poem that I couldn't make out and only guessed the last part.
You hear the Gabriel hounds, the witch towns
I couldn't make out the last part of the line.
Well, looking up the 'gabriel hounds' it's supposed to be the sounds of dog's howling on the moors, meant to be something supernatural.
So the witch-whatever is probably a mythical sound of some sort too. So it wouldn't be town or tomb then, unless there's a myth of creepy sounds from some witches burial site. I'd imagine it's like banshee wailing, but a local Cornish / Devonian myth.
Nicker on 30/4/2023 at 16:02
This sounds like a gloom-n-doom mash-up of dire omens, mythical metaphors and word association football.
Banshees howling (especially at your window) and black dogs with red eyes, met on the road, are harbingers of death. Gabriel's horn is the signal for the Christianity's, Judgement Day. Witches, during the setting of this piece, were all around bad news.
Cipheron on 30/4/2023 at 16:56
Also, to clarify the meaning of that part of the poem, scholarly sources say that people confused the sound of geese flocks for dogs barking, which is where the Gabriel Hounds comes from.
EDIT: actually i just listened to the episode myself. He is 100% saying "hounds" again, not "towns".
So we can interpret this part of the poem:
This is the season when the wild geese come over
And their voices and the voice of wind wailing about the moor
You hear the Gabriel hounds, the ???? hounds
the hounds of hell
So he's talking about the Gabriel Hounds the whole time.
EDIT EDIT: I GOT IT
(
https://digitaldevon.kenyon.edu/node/255)
Quote:
There are various rumours and myths on Dartmoor that concern the “gigantic hound” from Conan Doyle's story. One of the most well-known stories which most likely inspired Conan Doyle, is the legend of Squire Cabell--a man who was so wicked that when he died, the “Wisht Hounds” came to howl at his grave. Literally translating to hellhounds, the name “Wisht Hounds” derives from Wistman's Woods in Dartmoor.
So the geese = gabriel hounds, and the wailing wind = wisht hounds.
mxleader on 8/5/2023 at 04:16
After listening to it again I can now hear 'wisht' hounds. :thumb:
