"John and Joan"

Sabine Baring–Gould uses many detailed descriptions of the physical aspects of moorland and the small, often neighborly rural communities which dot the Dartmoor landscape in his collection of short stories taken from the moor, Dartmoor Idylls. These descriptions not only lend authenticity and authority to his telling, but are exemplary of literature from the South West revolving around and being formed by its landscapes. In this collection “John and Joan”, a tale about an elderly wife who ventures out through Dartmoor during an infamous set of winter blizzards and gets buried under the snow, shows well how Baring-Gould uses topographical details about the area around Tavy Cleave in conjunction with dialect and social interaction to paint a full scene of moorland people and their community. The story tells of John, Joan’s husband who, left in charge of their infant grandson, can only worry at home until the storms pass and he can gather a search party of men from the surrounding homesteads. Finally she is found by the party through blowing a bird whistle bought for the baby from a local jack-of-all–trades, she has kept safe under the shelter of a large boulder on the moor; the happily reunited couple and their neighbors return home and celebrate the pairs’ 50^th wedding anniversary with food and song.

This story portrays the landscape of Dartmoor as one which can be full of perils, largely wild and un–mastered by humans. While this is somewhat counteracted by Joan’s survival of the storm and her eventual rescue by the men– praise of the perseverance and adaptability of those who live on the Moor– the dangers are blatant nonetheless. This particular passage from “John and Joan” is a description of some of the many treacherous areas which make up Dartmoor through which Joan needed to trek, emphasizing the landscape’s isolation from the rest of the world and the lack of human control it embodies. Told from John’s perspective as he imagines the journey his wife must make through the moorland to get to their ailing daughter’s house and help with the washing, we the reader are taken on her likely route through this rough country with an eye for the topography as both a means by which she would navigate and, more importantly, as the impetus to explain the history of the landscape and how it has been shaped by its inhabitants as much as it shapes them.

Beginning from the homestead Joan and John have, Baring-Gould starts an examination of the relationship between landscape and those who live in it. John imagines Joan needing to head east, with Hare Tor in front of her and a gully called “Old Men’s Washings” ahead. In addition to the history of this landscape, the author makes us aware of its human populations–past and present– through a series of local names and terms for its features: for example, the “leat,” which is a stream dug through the area to supply an old mine far away. Baring-Gould explains that in ancient times this was a spot where ‘tinners had streamed for metal’, using it to point out the impact which the people had on the landscape through their use and development of its natural features. A granite block has been moved upright by men to mark where other large pieces of stone–features of the natural landscape– have been artificially placed to span the stream for cattle and owner to cross. After this crossing, we continue on Joan’s way down between Hare and Ger Tor; the reader is assumed to possess the knowledge that a Tor is a looming volcanic rock formation out on the moor which has pushed through the thin soil to form a free–standing structure. From these examples of local names and his notes on some of their origins, Baring-Gould gives us a sense of the historic, and even prehistoric, significance of the land formations to its few inhabitants. Rugged features such as granite outcropping and high winds molded their lifestyle– making drawing a living from the land difficult, travel perilous, and social gathering or interactions outside of town harder, but therefore more dear.

From the descriptions, the reader also gets a growing sense of human verses nature, where the inhabitants of Dartmoor have had to struggle against the dangerous physical formations of the land and, as in this story, the climate of their surroundings just to get by or develop and maintain interactive communities amongst themselves. We understand a little better now that the cottages were spaced out on the moors in part because the landscape made it fairly impossible to build farms near one another–the soil, rocks, and unprotected open moor were largely inhospitable to housing; thus Joan’s travels across the moors to visit her daughter are a significant undertaking. Continuing his worry, John figures that if Joan makes it past the gully and over the leat, she must go through the “neck” between the Tors and over an open down, which, while not steep or rock–strewn, is utterly exposed to the immense force of the gales and hurricanes which Dartmoor experiences. The threat of the landscape, even without mention of the weather (which, because of the high elevation and largely treeless topography of Dartmoor, is prone to thick mist cover, heavy rainstorms, flash flooding and high winds), is continued in description of “the Cleave,” a steep ledge “down which roared and foamed the river Tavy…. The descent was precipitous, among rocks tossed in confusion from the heights, their interstices at all time concealed by heather and whortleberry bushes” (32). Getting down is treacherous, and after she does Joan will have to cross the river on stepping–stones because there is no bridge–but there is often no other way to reach one’s destination in so remote and impoverished an area. Finally, the dangers of the vast open moor are discussed more fully at the end of the passage, when Baring-Gould, through the lens of John, remarks on the highly dangerous nature of open moors. “And even supposing she reached the further bank…her peril would have become greater, for beyond was open moor, with hardly a landmark, only to be traversed by such as were intimately acquainted with the way, and by them only in clear daylight, and when the direction was unmistakable” (33).

Of course, the wilderness and dangers of the moor are used to heighten the dramatic tension of the scene: John expresses fears for his wife which, though legitimate, exacerbate the descriptions of the moor as a threatening place, allowing Sabine to use the cautionary tale trope about being out on the moors at all. The fears that she might never be found in the large and isolated tracts of moorland are made more realistic and have greater impact when the reader absorbs the descriptions of the moor as a “vast, trackless desert where even animal, bird, and insect life fails”. It is not true that there is no animal life on the moors: wild ponies, sheep, and cattle were left almost all year to graze by farmers, but Sabine uses the real landscape in his descriptions, where you might not see any living creature in your whole scope of vision, to impart the sense of utter loneliness which comes with a white-out blizzard and thus increase our sympathy with John. In addition, the weight of ancient inhabitants, from the old miners to the farmers who put up stone crossings over streams, falls more heavily on the reader when impressed with the fact that there is no one out on the moors– in fact, that no one could survive there in such harsh weather–when Joan is lost. Thus Sabine weaves a tale of moor life in such a way that we feel the history, emptiness and dangers of the landscape, coupled with the mounting storm, all act in tandem to give us a more intimate understanding of Dartmoor’s inhabitants and bring us greater insight into the people through the place.

Sabine Baring–Gould: From “John and Joan”,

Dartmoor Idylls (31–33)

“She had gone due east, with Hare Tor before her, and had bent to the left to avoid the ‘Old Men’s Washings,’ a gully where, in ancient times, tinners had streamed for metal. She would, after a while, have reached the ‘leat,’ a stream of water conveyed for many miles along the hill–sides to supply a distant mine. An upright granite block indicated the spot where slabs had been cast across the stream to serve as a bridge for men and cattle. Joan assuredly had gone further than that. Had she crossed the neck between Hare Tor and Ger Tor? If so, then she would strike over open down unencumbered with rocks till she reached the Cleave, down which roared and foamed the river Tavy. There it was that most of the danger lay. The descent was precipitous, among rocks tossed in confusion from the heights, their interstices at all time concealed by heather and whortleberry bushes. Supposing she had reached the bottom of the ravine she would have to cross the river on the stepping–stones. Could she have done that before the storm came on? Could she have discovered the stepping–stones in the blinding snow? If she found them, could she have crossed the raging torrent on them without slipping and being swept away? And even supposing she had reached the further bank, then her difficulties would not have been at an end, her peril would have become the greater, for beyond was open room, with hardly a landmark, only to be traversed by such as were intimately acquainted with the way, the by them only in clear daylight, and when the direction was unmistakable. If she had gone from her course there, God help her! Even her body might never be found in that vast, trackless desert, where even animal, bird, and insect life fails. With these thoughts John tortured himself all afternoon, and could fine no rest.”