In the Middle Ages, the territory of the entire park was the royal hunting grounds. Today it is the southernmost and one of the largest British national parks. Archaeologists have found here evidence of primitive sites, Neolithic structures and the oldest traces of primitive man in all of Great Britain. And also - it is here and it is about this area that the famous work of Arthur Conan Doyle "The Hound of the Baskerville" was written.
Thanks to the special gloomy atmosphere that prevails in Dartmoor Park, tourists from all over the world come here to Devon County. The park itself is a swampy area of almost a thousand square meters, on which hills are scattered. Although it will not be possible to find real full-fledged swamps here, nevertheless, stepping on the surface of the earth, tourists feel how their shoes get wet. This is due to the fact that the topsoil is covered with peat, which absorbs and retains moisture over time.
On the territory of Dartmoor you can see ancient bridges, sacred stone circles, places of ancient burials. After the Normans conquered England in 1906, feudal castles began to be erected here, from the 12th to the 19th centuries, iron ore, copper, manganese, tin and silver were mined in the swamps of Dartmoor. And in the fields of the national park, the semi-wild Dartmoor ponies are still grazing - this is the oldest and most hardy breed of ponies in the UK. According to archaeologists, domesticated individuals were found here as early as 1500 BC.
Swamps are described in several works by various authors at once. However, this area was most popular with Arthur Conan Doyle and his readers in the form of the Grimpen Mire in the novel The Dog of the Basquevrills. It is believed that the idea to write the book came to Conan Doyle while he and his friend Bertram Flecher Robinson were vacationing in Norfolk. There Robinson and Told Conan Doyle about the mysterious ghost dogs that, according to local legends, lived in the swamps of Dartmoor.
In general, British folklore contains far from the only mention of monsters that have a canine appearance. All these stories are rooted in the ancient Norse legend of Odin's Black Dog, which the Vikings allegedly brought to Britain. Many stories tell how people met the image of a huge black dog with burning eyes.
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One of these stories tells of a certain farmer who was returning home with his wife from friends late in the evening. At some point, they heard a strange sound behind them, but no one was visible. Approaching their home, the couple thought they heard the sound of a dog running quickly after them. Having entered the gate and turned around, they saw a large black dog with green eyes and heard the sound of a dog running away. Some believe that the spirit of the huge dog protects good people and kills unworthy ones.
Stories of sudden encounters with a demon dog were told in different parts of the UK. And everywhere the dog was called somehow in its own way. As a result, this image became collective and was reflected in other legends. There are also references to him in the stories of Harry Potter, as a kind of mythical creature, which appears as an omen of death in the form of a huge black dog.
It is interesting by the way that not far from Dartmoor there is the same Princetown convict prison, from where the killer Seldon escaped and later hid in the swamps, and Barrymore and his wife fed him. Now the prison is closed, and it houses a museum. Well, as for the Baskervilles themselves, it was just a coachman who drove Conan Doyle and Robinson through the swamps.