WISTMAN'S WOOD. 109 



"In the extensive forests of ancient Britain, when the 

 atmosphere was damper and less moved by wind, the 

 mistletoe may have grown on the oak more generally than 

 at present. It fastens now on more than a dozen sorts of 

 trees, including the fir, yet it almost invariably avoids the 

 oak. Mr Jesse, the surveyor of Her Majesty's parks, failed 

 to discover it growing on the oak even in a single instance. 

 But this ' branch of spectres,' which still covers the apple 

 orchards of the Isle of Avelon that stronghold of Druid- 

 ism does sometimes strike root on the oak in sheltered 

 situations. In the great oak wood of the Weald of Sussex 

 there is at present, if the tree has not been felled very 

 recently, a specimen at Burningfold Farm, in the parish of 

 Dunsfold. The Society of Arts obtained a specimen some 

 years since in Gloucestershire. This is not very far from 

 the site in question, where one would gladly affix the 

 mistletoe to the banks of the Dart, and confirm the story 

 of the sacred grove, and prove our wood as old as Caesar 

 and contemporary with the birth of Christ. But the 

 mistletoe, which thrives in Siberia in certain situations, 

 does not climb in England higher than 500 ft. or 600 ft. 

 above the level of the sea, while the highest trees of 

 Dartmoor exceed 2,000 ft., and the site of Wistman's 

 Wood is not much less. 



" With regard to the age and name of this mysterious 

 wood, the name seems to be connected with the legend of 

 the Black Huntsman, otherwise called Wistman, and 

 descended from Woden, whose spectral pack of Wist 

 hounds hunted here on wild nights, when they might be 

 heard as they drifted over Dartmoor at full cry, or passed 

 among the branches of these weird oaks. It would not 

 appear unreasonable that a situation so congenial should 

 have been selected by the famous Wistman or Wishman, 

 as one of his numerous hunting grounds. 



" Whatever surmise as to the origin of its name we 

 may prefer, the age of the wood cannot be settled etymo- 

 logically. Was it primaeval or planted ? Captain S. P. 

 Oliver, R.A., who was employed on Dartmoor making a 



