Childe's Tomb is a granite cross on Dartmoor, Devon, England. Although not in its original form, it is more elaborate than most of the crosses on Dartmoor, being raised upon a constructed base, and it is known that a kistvaen is underneath.
A well-known legend attached to the site concerns a wealthy hunter, Childe, who became lost in a snow storm and supposedly died there despite disembowelling his horse and climbing into its body for protection. The legend relates that Childe left a note of some sort saying that whoever found and buried his body would inherit his lands at Plymstock. After a race between the monks of Tavistock Abbey and the men of Plymstock, the Abbey won.
The tomb was virtually destroyed in 1812 by a man who stole most of the stones to build a house nearby, but it was partly reconstructed in 1890.
Read more about Childe's Tomb: Description, Destruction, Reconstruction, Childe The Hunter
Famous quotes containing the words childe and/or tomb:
“...I knew I wanted to be permanently self-supporting and I vaguely thought I might work somewhere in the realm of ideas. I felt that I had within me an undeveloped fount of ideas. I did not know exactly what my ideas were, but whatever they were I wanted to convert people to them.”
—Rheta Childe Dorr (1866–1948)
“Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
Bound for the prize of all too precious you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inherse,
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)