THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 
55 
our local weather and other rhymes, the superstructure is Saxon, 
and of the widest national type. 1 
The " Wish Hounds " of Dartmoor, 2 and the " Yeth Hounds " of 
North Devon, are the "Gabriel Hounds" of Durham and York- 
shire ; the " Wild Hunt" of Germany ; the " Yule Host " of Iceland ; 
the " Hunt Macabe " in parts of France : while the huntsman is 
Herod chasing the Innocents in Eranche Comte, Hugh Capet at 
Fontainebleau, and King Arthur in some parts of Scotland. We 
have evidence of the later importation of this wild and wide-spread 
fancy into Cornwall, in the form it assumes, about Polperro, of the 
" Devil and his Dandy Dogs." 
But for the zealous labours of Professor Hunt and Mr. Bottrell, 
the popular tales of the West would by this time well-nigh have 
perished, though even in Devon a few still survive in current use. 
Customs have a more enduring vitality, and for our present purpose 
a more distinct value. Whately's statement, that " the vulgar in 
most parts of Christendom are continually serving the gods of 
their heathen ancestors," is literally true in the West. 
To take only the most obvious illustrations. It is within living 
memory that animals have been burnt alive in sacrifice in Cornwall,? 
to avert by propitiation the loss of other stock. Throughout the 
rural districts of Devon the toad is thrown into the flames as an 
emissary of the Evil One. The Polperro folk pass through their 
St. Peter's fire. The relics of Solar Worship abound on every hand ; 
not only in more general relations, but in special forms. There 
is nothing peculiar to the West in the fact that the sun directs the 
orientation of our churches, the position of our graves, and that 
the great festivals of Christendom are based upon and reproduce 
astronomical and not personal anniversaries, clustering round the 
solstitial and equinoctial feasts of earlier days. 4 
1 So the tale of the men who hedged in the cuckoo is told of a dozen places 
in England besides St. Neot, and finds a clear echo in far antiquity. 
2 Given by later tradition to Sir Francis Drake as huntsman ! 
3 Drolls of Old Cornwall. So in Morwenstow it was the custom to bury 
three living puppies " brandise-wise " in a field to rid it of weed. {Trans. Dev. 
Assoc. vol. ix. p. 90.) The yet prevalent belief in witchcraft also involves 
sacrifices to the devil. 
4 Sir Isaac Newton says : " The times of the birth and passion of Christ, 
with such like niceties, being not material to religion, were little regarded by 
the Christians of the first age. They who began first to celebrate them placed 
