it seems
to date from the sixteenth century.

Perhaps the Dartmoor village best known by name is
Widdecombe-in-the-Moor, and its fame is spread by the song 'Widdecombe
Fair;' this is the most popular of Devonshire folk-songs, and the air
served the Devon Regiment as a march in the Boer War. But Widdecombe has
more solid claims to consideration, and one of them is the large and
beautiful church, with its very fine tower and high crocketed pinnacles,
each pointed by a cross. The roof is adorned by 'bosses, carved and
painted with heads, flowers and leaves, and also figures or marks which
obscurely shadow forth the learning of the alchemist.' The presence of
these symbols is explained by a tradition that the church was built by
miners. 'On one of the bosses is the combination of three rabbits, each
with a single ear, which join in the centre, forming a triangle--a
favourite alchemical symbol, called the hunt of Venus.' Parts of the
rood-screen remain, and on the panels are painted saints and doctors of
the Church, and a king and queen. On October 21, 1638, a terrible storm
raged here during service-time. First fell 'a strange darkenesse'; then
a terrific thunder-clap; 'the ratling thereof' was much like 'the report
of many great cannons.' 'Extraordinarie lightning' flashed, 'so flaming
that the whole church was presently filled with fire and smoke,' and a
smell of brimstone, and a great ball of fire came in at the window and
passed through the church. The church itself was much torne and defaced,
'stones throwne from the Tower as thick as if an hundred men had been
there throwing.' Several people were killed and many 'grievously scalded
and wounded.' The history of the storm has been told in verse, and the
lines were painted on tablets and placed in the church. Mrs Bray found
'the wildest tales' of the storm floating among the people in the
neighbourhood, and, amongst them, 'One story is that the devil, dressed
in black and mounted on a black horse, inquired his way to the church,
of a woman who kept a little public-house on the moor. He offered her
money to become his guide; but she distrusted him, in remarking that the
liquor went hissing down his throat, and finally had her suspicions
confirmed by discovering he had a cloven foot, which he could not
conceal even by his boot.'

Widdecombe is called cold and bleak, and it is not only with the
terrific tempest that its name is associated, for when the snow fell
thickly