Childe the Hunter (song)

Childe the Hunter is a traditional ballad (Roud 23155) that Seth Lakeman recorded for Freedom Fields, released on his own iScream label on 20 March 2006 and re-released later that year by Relentless. It is the third track and runs to about 4 minutes 18 seconds. The Wikipedia page on the album records it as the story of Childe the Hunter, who died on Dartmoor.

The words were collected by Sabine Baring-Gould and published with H. Fleetwood Sheppard in Songs of the West; one folk-music site says Baring-Gould had it from the Dartmoor poet Jonas Coaker of Postbridge. The story: a hunter caught in a snowstorm on Foxtor Mires kills his horse to shelter in its body and leaves a will naming whoever buries him as heir to his Plymstock lands. A granite cross on the mires is said to mark the spot.

Freedom Fields was recorded at the Piano Kitchen in the Walkham Valley, on Dartmoor's west side. Other singers, including Jim Causley, have recorded the same ballad.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org; mainlynorfolk.info; sethlakeman.co.uk