Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/362

284 I frequently heard of the coach going from Okehampton to Tavistock when I was a boy; and there was a ballad about it, of which I was able to recall a few fragments, which I completed and published along with the original air in my Songs of the West. As a child I remember the deadly fear that I felt lest I should be on the road at night, and my nurse was wont to comfort me by saying there was no fear of the "Lady's Coach," except after midnight.

In the vicarage garden are some very early inscribed stones collected from the neighbourhood. There is no token on them that they are Christian. Their inscriptions are:—

"#Neprani fill Condevi
 * 1) Sabini fili Maccodecheti
 * 2) Dobunii Fabri fili Enabarri."

This latter has on it also in oghans Enabarr. The second has the test word Mac for Map or Mab, indicative of Irish occupation. Moreover Dechet was a name, probably of a sept or tribe in Kerry, where several stones inscribed with the same name are found.

The third is interesting, for Dobun was a faber or smith. In Celtic organisation every tuatha or tribe had its chief smith, and every fine or clan had its smith and forge as well, all whose rights and dues were determined by law; moreover, the head smith of the tribe was a man of very considerable consequence, social and political.