Hence a short diversion will take to the logan rock on Stinga Tor.
[Illustration: INSCRIPTION ON SOURTON CROSS.]
On Sourton Down stands an old granite cross that bears an inscription only to be read when the sun is setting and casts its rays aslant over the face. Apparently the monolith was shaped into a Latin cross at some period later than the inscription, which belongs to the sixth century. It is headed by the early Christian symbol of the ☧ but badly made. The same symbol occurs on the inscribed stone at Southill. The granite is of a very coarse texture, especially where the figure occurs and at the beginning of the name.
As for every person, so for every place, a time comes if waited for. It has come for Lydford, burnt by Danes, deserted in the Middle Ages, abandoned by its rectors.
"At six o'clock I came along And prayed for those that were to stay Within a place so arrant; Wide and ope the winds so roar, By God's grace I'll come there no more Till forc'd by a tin warrant."
So wrote Browne in the seventeenth century.
But the time has arrived for Lydford at last, and now in summer it is hardly possible for a visitor to obtain lodgings, unless he has written to secure them months before, so greatly does Lydford attract to it those who have eyes to see beautiful scenery and hearts to appreciate it.
Derivation of the name--Phoenicians--Taw Marsh--Artillery practice on the moors--Encroachments--The East Okement--Pounds and hut circles--Stone rows on Cosdon--Cranmere Pool--Sticklepath--Christian inscribed stones--South Zeal--West Wyke--North Wyke--The wicked Richard Weekes--South Tawton church--The West Okement--Yes Tor--Camp and Roman road--Throwleigh.
A good deal of pseudo-antiquarianism has been expressed relative to the name of a little moorland parish two and a half miles uphill from Okehampton. It is now called Belstone, and it has been surmised that here stood a stone dedicated to Baal, whose worship had been introduced by the Phœnicians.
I must really quote one of the finest specimens of "exquisite fooling" I have ever come across. It appeared as a sub-article in the _Western Morning News_ in 1890.
"Much interest, not only local but world-wide, was aroused a few months back by the announcement of a Phœnician survival at Ipplepen, in the person of Mr. Thomas Ballhatchet, descendant of the priest of the Sun Temple there, and until lately owner of the plot of land called Baalford, under Baal Tor, a priestly patrimony, which had come down to him through some eighteen or twenty centuries, together with his name and his marked Levantine features and characteristics.