Hound Tor: the Petrified Hunter

The popular version, which you will find on most Dartmoor sites, goes like this: a hunter and his pack were pursuing game on a Sunday when they were caught in a supernatural storm and turned to stone. You can still see them on the tor, if you know which rocks to look at. It is the kind of tale that makes perfect sense on the moor, especially on a grey afternoon.

The trouble is, nobody quite knows where it came from. There is no obvious written source that I have found, and the versions that circulate online tend to echo each other rather than reference anything older. It may have been local oral tradition; it may be a Victorian or 20th-century invention; it may have mutated from something quite different. The tor itself is real and striking, which is all a good legend really needs. For a fuller look at this one, including what little can be traced, I have written a longer piece on Hound Tor separately.