Leaving The Village
I Went Up The Hill To The Devil's Jumps To See The Sun Set.
The Devil,
as I have said, was much about these parts in former times; his habits
were quite familiar to the people, and his name became associated with
some of the principal landmarks and features of the landscape.
It was
his custom to go up into these rocks, where, after drawing his long
tail over his shoulder to have it out of his way, he would take one of
his great flying leaps or jumps. On the opposite side of the village we
have the Poor Devil's Bottom - a deep treacherous hole that cuts like a
ravine through the moor, into which the unfortunate fellow once fell
and broke several of his bones. A little further away, on Hindhead, we
have the Devil's Punch Bowl, that huge basin-shaped hollow on the hill
which has now become almost as famous as Flamborough Head or the Valley
of Rocks.
At the Jumps a shower came on, and to escape a wetting I crept into a
hole or hollow in the rude mass of black basaltic rock which stands
like a fortress or ruined castle on the summit of the hill. When the
shower was nearly over I heard the wing-beats and low guttural voice of
a cuckoo; he did not see my crouching form in the hollow and settled on
a projecting block of stone close to me - not three yards from my head.
Presently he began to call, and it struck me as very curious that his
voice did not sound louder or different in quality than when heard at a
distance of forty or fifty yards. When he had finished calling and
flown away I crept out of my hole and walked back over the wet heath,
thinking now of the cuckoo and now of that half natural, half
supernatural but not very sublime being who, as I have said, was
formerly a haunter of these parts. This was a question that puzzled my
mind. It is easy to say that legends of the Devil are common enough all
over the land, and date back to old monkish times or to the beginning
of Christianity, when the spiritual enemy was very much in man's
thoughts; the curious thing is, that the devil associated in tradition
with certain singular features in the landscape, as it is here in this
Surrey village, and in a thousand other places, has little or no
resemblance to the true and only Satan. He is at his greatest a sort of
demi-god, or a semi-human being or monster of abnormal power and wildly
eccentric habits, but not really bad. Thus, I was told by a native of
Churt that when the Devil met with that serious accident which gave its
name to the Poor Devil's Bottom, his painful cries and groans attracted
the villagers, and they ministered to him, giving him food and drink
and applying such remedies as they knew of to his hurts until he
recovered and got out of the hole.
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