WISTMAN'S WOOD. 413 



granite boulders have gradually accumulated since 

 the existence of the trees. 



That these oaks and rowans are enormously old I 

 do not doubt. Those which I saw might have trunks 

 a foot in diameter on the average, and their height is 

 from twelve to fifteen feet. The branches are won- 

 derfully twisted and knotted ; the heads are scanty, 

 flattened, and wide-spread; and both trunks and 

 boughs are so thickly encrusted with dense moss, that 

 ferns grow profusely upon them.* The foliage is not 

 unhealthy ; and I observed numbers of those globular 

 galls, like a boy's marbles, which have lately attracted 

 notice in South Devon. I saw no young trees, no 

 suckers, no acorns. Individual immortality seemed 

 to be conferred on these remnants of bygone times, 

 but nothing that indicated transmission of life to 

 another generation. 



I should much like to see a section of one of these 

 old trunks ; to count the concentric circles, and thus 

 obtain a clue to then* actual age. At the Norman 

 Conquest the wood is said to have presented the same 

 appearance as it now does ; and I should think it by 

 no means an unreasonable conjecture that these iden- 

 tical trees have witnessed Druidical rites. The ex- 

 planation of the name, " Wistman's Wood/' as iowe- 

 maris wood, has been ridiculed ; but, considering the 

 ancient form of " iwist" (from the Saxon pjn^J 1 ,) to 

 know, it is highly suggestive : q. d., the Wood, or 



* Polnpodium vulgare, and Lastrcea dilatata arid recurva pro- 

 fusely. 



