The visiting Revd John Swete summed it up perfectly in 1797: ‘Silence seemed to have taken up her abode in this sequestered wood — and to a superstitious mind some impression would have occurred approaching to dread, or sacred horror.’
A remnant of a vast forest that covered Dartmoor thousands of years ago, Wistman’s Wood is full of twisted dwarf oaks that form a canopy over a carpet of granite boulders, all covered in damp, rich moss and lichen.
Its name stems from the old Devonshire wisht, meaning ‘eerie’ or ‘pixie-led’ and locals associate it with ancient druids and the ‘soul-raving’ Wild Hunt of Dartmoor — a ghoulish spectacle of hell-hounds (or wisht hounds) pursuing sinners across the moor at night.
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