Hounds: Dormouse, Steffan, Phantom, Big Bird, Grasshopper, JB, Tenzing, Why Bother, P2L, Brush off, Moonflower, Gym Slip
On down: Carewe Arms, Crowcombe
I managed to swoop in on time, as I had been left to my own devices (the rest of the coven were otherwise engaged - holidays, Olympics….honestly some people have their priorities all wrong!) A good number of hearty hashers were already gathered. As it was a live hare we were told to stand in a line facing the sign for three minutes and under no circumstance do any peeking (as if we would cheat..) Passers by must have thought some strange Quantock ritual was taking place. Three minutes up, we made a move to check it out. Down to the right was finally on, taking us into Govett’s wood and down… and down…. and down… Eventually the down ended and we hit a track that must have been about 100 yards from where we started! Flour proved a little tricky to find, but eventually the path was found and yes, it was up, up and up.
More twists and turns and we pop out onto some open land and I’m sure I could see the car park in the near distance! Some thorough checking needed as the trail was tricky to find (I’m sure that’s because it was cleverly laid!) On on called and we enter woods again, which takes us down again. Some very helpful signage on the ground then telling us we were going up, up and up (so kind). Through some very muddy tracks and more woodland, (I think we must have been in Seven Wells Wood – not really sure though..) then out into the open and we skirt around some gorse and hit the re-group, but no sweets we are told, although probably for the best, a serious risk that we could have been eaten alive if we stood around too long, so on on called and back into the woods. Eventually we cross a road, my sense of direction has now gone completely, more helpful writing on the ground (the hare can apparently hear us) and (we’re not far now). We are now running along deer paths as we wend our way up and up. Then the ghostly figures of the hares appear in the mist, with whisperings of only a mile to go…. but a short while later we pop out onto the road and in the haze we see the car park.
A great live hare run, thank you hares.
In the vein of Dead Woman’s Ditch I found a ghost story (I’ve cut it down a bit), but I’m very pleased I wasn’t running alone… Yeth Hounds…..
The Curse of the Yeth Hounds.'
By Jacqueline Marchplane
I sat on Thorncombe Barrow, above the village of Bicknoller in the Quantock Hills in Somerset wondering if they would come tonight. I was waiting for the appearance of the Yeth Hounds, those strange ghostly creatures whom I believed had laid their curse on me many years before.
I first heard about the Yeth Hounds when I was a teenager. A gang of us had gone into the Carew Arms in the village of Crowcombe, which was frequented back in the sixties manly by hill farmers and old shepherds. Earthy men descended from generations of West Somerset folk who lived, worked and breathed the air of the Quantocks, men whose very souls were born out of the combes and covers on the hills. Men who knew no other life, nor had any desire to.
We were assembled in the public bar with its flagstone floors and roaring log fire throwing darts at the dartboard. We weren’t playing a game as such, merely messing around to pass the evening, laughing and joking amongst ourselves. The men would tell stories to each other, though sometimes I suspected they were for our benefit as well, when they got bored with the dominoes. Some of us had to walk home later in the night over the hill, and the stories served well to scare us half to death before we left for home. There was a story about a seven-headed monster that lived in Crowcombe combe, surviving on a diet of young lambs and deer. There was another about the ghost of Dead Woman’s Ditch, a grey apparition of a female figure who roamed the hilltops. However, the story that intrigued me most was the story of the Yeth Hounds.
According to the local characters in the pub, the Yeth Hounds appeared around the time of the full moon, accompanied by a rider on a black stallion. The whole apparition appeared black, as if in a silhouette and they were completely silent. Not a hoof fall or the bay of a hound would ever be heard. They would appear from nowhere and gallop noiselessly by any lone walker who happened to be on the hills in twilight. It was also said that anyone who happened to see the Yeth Hounds would later experience extreme bad luck after the sighting.
It was about three years after hearing the story that I actually believe I saw the Yeth Hounds, and it was to be a
n experience I would never forget. It was late October and I was walking my dog above Crowcombe, on the main track that runs the length of the hills. The sun had gone down and there was a distinct chill in the air, the Hunters Moon was already ascending like a giant red Chinese lantern in the sky. It was light enough to see, but only just. However, I liked to be on the hill at that time of the year. I liked to hear the roar of the rutting stags echoing around the combes below me. I was listening hard but all was silent. There were no stags to be heard that night. Then I noticed something coming towards me. It was just one shape to start with and I couldn’t make out what it was but as it approached I realised that there was more than one shape.
I stood stock still on the track as it came closer and closer. Yet I still could hear nothing as I began to make out the outline of a horse and rider surrounded by several dogs with long curved tails. They were without doubt, hounds, a familiar sight in this part of the country, but they showed no colour. There were no light patches of white on them that should have been clearly visible in the moonlight. Everything about this spectacle, what ever it was, was black. I could make out no contours or features on either horse, rider or hounds.
I called the dog to me and caught hold of his collar for fear that he might take after the hounds and decide to run with them. However, he seemed to show no interest in them at all, as if they did not even exist. Suddenly they were level with me, passing by, their feet appearing not to touch the ground at all. I looked up to catch a glimpse of the face of the rider but he was looking away from me and all I saw was the bizarre outline of a hooded cloak. With the same they were gone. They seemed to fade into the darkness much more quickly than they had appeared and as they moved on silently down the track behind me they were soon lost from view.
I was shaking all over. The whole experience was weird and uncanny. I knew that whatever I had seen was not of this world yet I also felt that I had had no part to play in their appearance. It was if I just happened to be there at the time.
***
(The story goes on…. She leaves Somerset, lives in India for a while, suffers a huge loss and eventually returns to Somerset…..)
***
So now, back in England, back in my beloved West Somerset I wondered whether I really had been cursed by the Yeth hounds. Deep down I knew it was irrational. The sights I had seen on the streets of Calcutta told me that. The deprivation, misery and suffering touches the hearts of all those who witness it. Yet I had to know for certain. Somehow I had come to the conclusion that if I were to see the hounds again I would find out, so I set about visiting the hills after sunset, in the hope of seeing them again.
I had been on Thorncombe Barrow for quite some time now. The sun had gone down, dusk was falling and a chilly breeze blew in from the Bristol Channel. I supposed I really ought to make my way back home but there was no one waiting for me and I had no agendas to keep. I watched, with a growing feeling of peace and contentment as the moonlight began to sparkle on the sea beyond. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes but opened them just as quickly when I felt two hands roughly grip my shoulders. Before I knew what was happening I felt myself being forced to lie flat on the ground and my clothes were being torn brutally from me. I might have screamed, I don’t really know but I struggled hard against my attacker.
He was about thirty years old I guessed, and wearing cycling gear. He kept shouting to me not to scream and I wouldn’t get hurt. I tried to plead with him to leave me alone but he said he was going to have me. He even said if I didn’t struggle so much I may even enjoy it. He had pulled my skirt up and begun to tear at my underwear when he suddenly stopped and began to shrink away from me. The look of savage aggression in his eyes seemed to turn to sheer terror as he stared at something behind me. He released his left hand, which he had been using to pin me down and I was able to sit up and turn round. Coming up the side of the barrow from the track below us was the dark horse and rider surrounded by his Yeth hounds.
They are here! They have come! was all I could say. My assailant began to scream and groan, crawling through the heather on his belly as he tried to get away from the spectre before him.
They came closer and closer till the strange black creatures formed a circle around me. The rider too approached and drew up his horse beside me, but this time he turned to face me. He bent silently over me and looked down at me. At that moment the wind caught the side of his hood, taking it backwards off his face. I found myself staring into the hollow eye sockets of a skull; its bony angular features unable to portray any emotion. He stretched out a bony hand in what I took to be a gesture of compassion…
