Dartmoor, DEVON.

Two miles north of Widecombe-in-the-Moor there is a lonely stretch of countryside with a roadside grave where fresh flowers have appeared mysteriously for years.

Jay's Grave is said to be the final resting place of a young girl, Mary Jay, who hanged herself in a barn which used to stand on the site of the grave. According to the custom of over a hundred years ago, she was buried in unconsecrated ground on the spot where she committed suicide. Ever since, it is said, fresh flowers have appeared on Mary's grave and no one has ever discovered where they come from.

From time to time there are stories too of unexplained figures being seen in the vicinity of the grave. In August 1967 a seventeen-year-old girl and her fiance saw someone, or something, crouching over the grave as they passed the spot in a car. Rosemary Long described how the crouched figure straightened itself and stood up as they passed, looking like a huddled man at the head of a grave. He appeared to have a dark blanket over his head and body and around the bottom of the blanket there was a white line. The blanket stopped about a foot above the ground; yet there were no legs to the figure and no face was visible. Other local people and visitors have had similar experiences there. Wooder Manor Hotel, Widecombe-in-the-Moor, Devon.

* Dart moor, DEVON.

According to legend the ghost of Sir Francis Drake (1545-96) has been seen on the moor, riding with a pack of spectral hounds whose cries are so terrible that any dog hearing them dies on the spot! (My wife and I once spent a night on Dartmoor and our dog whined and was restless the whole night.) It is also said that Drake's ghost sets out for Plymouth from Tavistock in a black coach or hearse, drawn by four headless horses—and, some say, preceded by a dozen goblins whose eyes flash fire and whose nostrils emit smoke! White Hart Hotel, Moretonhampstead, Devon.