In this third ‘Madwen’ blog, I delve further into the journey and duties of an Anglo-Saxon dairy maid on Dartmoor during transhumance, the seasonal movement of livestock to upland pastures. I follow Madwen’s travel to her summer dwelling, known to us as Higher Butterworthy, her community’s preparation for the fire festival marking summer’s start, and the initial tasks on reaching her summer dwelling.
Category: <span>Dartmoor</span>
In this blog I take a walk in the most southerly part of Dartmoor National Park, exploring the delightful Longtimber woods, the River Erme and the open expanses of Hanger Down.
In this second in a series of blogs based around a 9th century Anglo-Saxon dairy maid called Madwen, we follow her on the second part of her short journey from the Tavy, through to the sinister White Tor, a place which she fears. On this route we learn a little of how the Anglo-Saxon landscape was divided, and how it might have looked differently because of fewer enclosure walls. I will also explore some initial thoughts about how the dairy landscape might have been managed – the role of Smeardon (named after butter) and the possible subsequent development of abbey ‘vaccaries’.
Using a different approach to my normal writing, in this blog I imagine a fictional historic character called Madwen, a 9th century Saxon dairy maid. In this first of a series I follow Madwen from her home at Hurdwick on the first stage of her journey for a season of summering and dairying on Dartmoor. I use this made-up narrative to help me explore transhumance, dairying and dairy folklore.
At last! In this blog I finally reach Chagford, on the final stage of the old highway across the moor from Plymouth to this lovely eastern Dartmoor market town and staging post to Exeter. In this route I descend from open moor, back into the security and constriction of the Devon lanes and head for the town, which for hundreds of years has been a place of hospitality for a weary traveller.
In Tavistock there is a shady riverside walk on the far bank of the Tavy known as St John’s. It has an amazing history of having once housed a chapel, hermitage, ‘pest house’ and holy well. Apart from a well, nothing remains of this past, and it is fair to say very few people have any idea of its yesteryears.
In this blog I take its known history and, using new map evidence, take a more in-depth landscape look at St John’s to reveal: where the medieval road used to go; a previously un-recorded farm; a mysterious summer-house; a picturesque tor by the river that has been obliterated; and the ‘real’ St John’s Well.
I also find not just one, but three potential reasons, why St John’s is so perfectly named.
Postbridge is a new village but an old place. Its clapper has meant that, for God knows how many centuries, traffic has had to pass through here. But it is also part of the island of ancient tenements; making a living in a highland sea of swelling and rolling tors, in a place of safety and harbour. And in being separate, in being cut off, there is a feeling of this place as being otherworldly.
Is it stag semen? Is it Piskie Puke? Is it the gelatinous remains of a fallen star? In this blog about rare Star Jelly, I look at past and present understandings of this odd glob.
In this last blog of four about Samhain, I finally get a chance to use what I learnt in my research to have a stab at placing Samhain on Dartmoor. Where might the gatherings, fires and drinking have happened?
In this blog I look at a selection of Halloween folklore, building from an understanding of the earlier Samhain customs. Included here is a long-dead Devon tradition, recorded by Mrs Bray that harks back to the pagan rhythm of the festival year.
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