Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/307

Rh Mr. Bidder died suddenly from disease of the heart on September 20th, 1878, aged seventy-two years.

Mr. Bidder remembered many of the old stories of the moor told him by the blacksmith in whose forge he spent so many hours.

I have given one in my chapter on Dartmoor and its tenants. Here is another, as recorded by Miss Bidder, the daughter of Mr. George P. Bidder.

There was a woman, and she lived at Brennan on the moor. And she had a baby. And one day she left her baby on the moor to play and pick "urts" (whortleberries), and she hasted to Moreton town. Now as she went she saw three ravens flying over her head from Blackiston. And she said, "Where be you a goin' to, Ravens cruel?" They answered, "Up to Brennan! up to Brennan!" She had not gone far before she saw three more flying in the same direction. And again she asked, "Where be you a goin' to, Ravens cruel?" And these three likewise answered her, "Up to Brennan! up to Brennan!" Now when she had gone somewhat further, and was drawing nigh to Moreton, again she saw three ravens fly over her head, and for the third time she put the same question and received the same answer. When in the evening she returned to Brennan Moor, there no little baby's voice welcomed her, for all that remained of her child was a heap of well-picked white bones.

Brennan is what is marked on the Ordnance Survey as Brinning, a lonely spot south of Moreton