A Further Note on the ‘Stag Hunt’ in Devon

M Y earlier paper on this subject appeared in Folklore, 1952.1 Since then a little more material has come to hand, so this may be an appropriate occasion to contribute a few comments as a small offering to Miss Hole. In 1952 I quoted local accounts of the 'hunt' of sundry socially undesirable villagers (allegedly adulterers or homosexuals) either in person or by proxy-the latter wearing horns-by a crowd of men and boys dressed as huntsmen or baying like hounds. These accounts I had from Okehampton, Winkleigh and Exbourne, all in North Devon, and also from Drewsteignton, Chagford and Gidleigh on the north-eastern border of Dartmoor. One informant, a vicar, was somewhat alarmed at my enquiry and said he did hope I was not planning a revival of this horrible custom; on the other hand, when I described it at an Extra-Mural class in one such area, a member exclaimed, thoughtlessly, 'What a good idea! Why on earth don't we do it now?' Other villages have joined my list: Broadwoodwidger, North Lew, Chillaton near Tavistock, where my informant's husband as a boy used to take part. An elderly woman told me that, when she lived at Bideford as a small child, she could remember hearing the 'hunt' going by one evening, but her parents would not let her look out of the window as they said it wasn't nice for a girl

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