The Legends of Wistman’s Wood

Three Spooky Tales from Wistman’s Wood

To get you in the mood for a spooky Halloween, join us on a tour of Wistman’s Wood, supposedly one of Dartmoor’s most haunted enclaves. Dim the lights and read on, if you dare…

A Honeymoon Vanishing

The sun had set behind Higher White Tor, its ebbing smoulder sparking the outcrops before shadows claimed the lonely Dartmoor uplands. A pair of wayfarers retraced their steps across the moor in the fading light, their hearts beating loudly in their chests as a feeling of panic set in. “It’s okay,” she told him, “I’m sure the road is in this direction. Pass me the torch so I can check on the map.” But the torch batteries were as good as empty, offering only a wavering fluorescent pool around their soggy boots. The thick drizzle had blotched the ink and torn the seams of their map, confirming what they both knew but were too scared to admit.

Strange and twisted shapes reached out from the dark, the gnarly tangles of Wistman’s Wood. He slipped. Whisking his heel along a moss-covered boulder, he slid down another into a pocket-gully, buckling his leg. “Damn it!” he winced, strangling his pain into a whisper. A sprained ankle to add to their list of worse-case scenarios. This kind of thing happened to other people she reminds herself, embarrassed by their swift descent into helplessness, the echoes of the pub landlord surfacing in her consciousness…

“It’s beautiful up there, but make sure you’re back on the path by dusk, and keep your wits about you if you stumble across Wistman’s Wood”. He returned another polished pint glass to its rightful shelf… “I take all those legends with a pinch-a-salt myself, but I wouldn’t want to be caught out there after dark”.

She asked him if he could put weight on his twisted ankle, but her concerns were interrupted by a blood-curdling howl that serrated the night. “What was that?” he exclaimed. She tried to convince him that it was just a fox, but her attempt was stalled by a stalking growl. The chilling noise persisted, this time closer and all around them, enveloping them with its torturous, breathy gargle. The coupled clenched each other in the spinning dark. The growl drew closer, but this time quieter, as if readied and poised. The beaming honeymooners who set off that morning with the Devon highlands at their feet now dared not breathe.

Adrenaline kicked in. He loosened his shoulders out from his rucksack, fumbled for one of the pockets and found his trusty Swiss army knife, thrusting out a rusty two-inch blade into the night. She felt out the damp earth around the boulder, clasping hold of a slimy piece of wood that snaps under its own weight, launching another feeble attempt at defence. This couldn’t be happening…This couldn’t be real…Bloodshot, amber eyes rose from the hollows and huge paws crushed the mast into the leaf litter following a thick trail of saliva…

It was to be their one and only walking holiday, a blood-spattered map the only clue in the unsolved case of the vanished moorland sweethearts.

Beware the Wisht Hounds of Wistman’s Wood which kennel beneath the withered dwarf oaks and guard the doorway to the underworld. Beware the demon dogs that pick the bones from the lost and strayed.

The Axeman’s Final Swing

No one enjoyed an open hearth and roaring fire more than axeman John Snell. All year he’d be chopping logs for his stores, setting aside the choicest and selling the rest to his neighbours. John’s tree felling feats were legendry across the moors, he once felled a gargantuan walnut with seven swings, or so the story goes. He also enjoyed a healthy dose of whiskey, which would often send him into a stupor.

One night, in the raucous, smoky haze of the Hare & Hounds, he overheard a couple of villagers talking about the ancient yews that stood on the churchyard and how they must never be harmed as they were rooted to consecrated ground. “Nothing burns as slowly as old yew” bellowed John, rising from his stall and towering above the surprised patrons. “I’d cut through the heartwood of both those yews just to see them glowing on my fireplace,” he continued with drunken irreverence, swigging back the dregs of his whiskey.

“Surely not” one of the men protested, “who would do such a thing in the eyes of the lord.” John guffawed. “I’ll fell any tree on Dartmoor, let no man stand in my way. It be the rights of my ancestors, the right to swing my axe wherever I so wish. There’s no tree stronger than me in the whole of the Devonshire.”

Annoyed by such pomposity the man replied, “If that be so, I challenge you. Bring me a slice of trunk from Wistman’s Wood. Let’s see how brave an axeman you really are.” John glowered down at his inquisitor, “I shall do it tonight, none of those nonsense scare stories bother me. You shall have a slice from Wistman’s heart by dawn, but in return you must walk on your hands and knees around Farmer Greengage’s pigsty shouting out how wrong you were to doubt the word of John the axeman Snell.”

John knew the path to Wistman’s Wood as well as he knew the flagstones on his farmhouse kitchen floor, the sharpened blade of his axe resting upon his shoulder as he made ample strides towards the warped shadows of the twisted oaks.

He held the handle of his axe above his head and unleashed a ferocious swing, splintering the bark and landing it deep into the heartwood. He gripped the throat and belly of the axe with his calloused palms and attempted to wrench it free but found it wedded to the woody flesh. The more he pulled, the more the oak seemed to bite back…

A splintering and cracking sound could be heard from below, and to John’s horror, one of the tree roots began curling around his ankle…and then the other ankle…and then his waist, pulling him towards the trunk and slowly constricting and crushing him. He had no air in his lungs to scream, his bones shattering as the roots devoured him whole, regurgitating a crumpled and contorted mess.

That was his final resting place. Conjured into a mossy boulder by the spirits of the wood. Some say they have heard his muffled cries coming from the boulders as they passed the woods – the trapped horrors of axeman John Snell and his bitter demise.

Piskie Spells of Wistman’s Wood

Dartmoor pixies, or piskies as they’re also known, can be helpful folk, guiding walkers away from bogs and mires, leaving behind foraged food baskets for the weary, and even mending crooked cartwheels and broken tools for farmhands. However, some can be playfully mischievous, to the point of mishap and even disaster. And that was the fate of old man Watkins and his prize terrier, Burdock.

Burdock was the parish’s champion ratter and could rid a barn full of rodents in no time. However, he was also an adventurous dog and loved to race off over the moors and chase anything he could sniff out, often going to ground for days at a time and then emerging caked in mud with fresh scars around his muzzle. One spring morning, Burdock finished chewing his breakfast before bolting out the door to follow his twitching nose. He chased rabbits through the grasses, a pony through the bracken, and locked jaws on a badger before turning tale to dart into the rooty undergrowth of old Wistman’s Wood.

Having shaken off the trail of his angry brock (an old Devonian name for badgers) he stopped to drink rainwater from a puddle, when an unfamiliar scent tickled his nostrils. Off he bounded to land in a heap at the feet of a piskie sitting on a mossy stone carving a stick whistle. The piskie was at first delighted to see the terrier, but changed his mood when Burdock sunk his teeth into his ankle.

The piskie jumped to its feet and cast a horrible, peppery spell that sent Burdock into a sneezing fit. Piskies being piskies know all the whisperings of the moors, and the woodland birds were quick to inform him about the terrier’s trails of destruction. Furnished with these truths, and still smarting from his sore ankle, he picked up his stick whistle and tossed it into the undergrowth, chased by an excited Burdock, never to be seen again, only to be heard barking around the wood trying to find an escape from the impossible maze of magical tangles.

Not even the whistles and calls of his broken-hearted master could help guide him free. Instead, old man Watkins spent his remaining days wandering the moor in search of his most faithful companion. One bite too many for Burdock the mischievous rat catcher.

Discover more of the national park’s legendary myths, fables and ghost stories when you book a holiday cottage on Dartmoor.