The Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould - The Dartmoor Podcast Episode Thirty One

[@MD.MILON.MIAH_]

Your video is truly amazing.

[@jovice9867]

What an incredible man. Really fascinating vlog. Thank you so much. 😊

[@h.bsfaithfulservant4136]

Bloody marvellous George. Thankyou for brightening a dull day, with this engaging and intriguing 'podcast'. Excellent contributions by writer and archivist too 🤕😁😆

[@Johnkels100]

Absolutely excellent

[@TigerLily7.]

What a way to start a new year of podcasts* (*not podcasts), George! Epic! Great interview too. Just a gentle reminder - stay kind to archivists. 😄

[@devonwalking]

OOh my most favorite ever of your 'podcasts'. I am a total addict too, I think he would have been the best dinner guest. My father was a polymath and told stories (some, now he is gone I start to wonder how true they were, but like with RSBG's stories, it actually doesn't matter). It was my father who is partly responsible for my addiction to the great man, he told me stories about the 'Vicar of Morwenstow', the rather excentric Rev Hawker (we live nearish Morwenstow), I found SBG's biography of Hawker in a second hand bookshop years and years ago and bought it for Dad, I also found 'The Book of Dartmoor' that day and was hooked (in the foreward it said that some of the stories were perhaps a little embroidered 🤣) and I fell in love with this book and the author (sadly I can't find it at the moment, redecorating so it's somewhere 'safe'!). Also the house of one of our neighbours was home of the man who is probably the basis of Cruel Coppinger, (SBG's 'In the Roar of the Sea' another of my favorite books). I have quite a collection of his books and love his diversity, I agree that he was a mischevious polymath, a fascinating man with a great imagination. I am after As I Walked out now and also want to find someone who has recorded the songs he collected (I have one now, thanks George, have you thought of looking for a record deal 😉😂), someone gave a talk in our village last year but I missed it sadly. Thank you for another very entertaining and informative 'podcast'. Looking forward to the next one. :)

[@thedartmoorpodcast]

Thank you! He's an easy character to get obsessed with isn't he!

[@devonwalking]

Absolutely, must find my Book of Dartmoor, we know so much more of it now than the last time I read it, it's somewhere under all the furniture we had to move for decorating, could be a while! @@thedartmoorpodcast

[@rialobran]

I'm intrigued now by the 'warren' on Great Mis Tor, must try to find that. I'm convinced that 'Dewer' comes from the Cornish 'Dyowl' meaning Devil, happy to be proven wrong but as your hero is a Cornish hater... Still your hero and I agree Galford near Lewtrenchard is the likely place of battle between the Cornish and Saxons in 825AD, I've been planning on doing a film about it sometime or other. Nice little episode, I enjoyed the last one also.

[@WessexMan]

Didn't get the Author Lawrence's Sirname. Would like to read his book! Excellent video!

[@thedartmoorpodcast]

Thank you! It's McNeela and the link is in the description below the video.

[@LawrenceWrites31]

Excellent stuff!! Very well done and very funny.

[@thedartmoorpodcast]

Thank you! And thanks for coming on and sharing your knowledge and insights!

[@LawrenceWrites31]

@@thedartmoorpodcast Hmm, knowledge and insights might be stretching it😂

[@jontron380]

Fascinating subject. I'm off to read more about SBG, i hope you don't mind me using his initials, to much for me to say all the time 😊 Also the Beast of Dartmoor will make a good night time read on the next camp out 😱

[@thedartmoorpodcast]

Enjoy the RSBG rabbit-hole! He was involved in so much stuff that this pod (not a pod) only just scratches the surface.

[@jamestremlett9491]

Horbury Bridge (not Sowerby Bridge) was where Baring-Gould met his wife-to-be Grace and the village of Horbury are having a massive Baring-Gould celebration this weekend, including a re-enactment of the Whit Sunday procession that SBG composed 'Onward Christian Soldiers' for in 1865!

[@thedartmoorpodcast]

Nice! Here's a cool little story I heard about the original procession which demonstrates the reverend's humour... The line in the hymn 'with the cross of Jesus going on before' referred to a replica cross being carried at the head of the procession - the children would sing the hymn as they marched. A local bishop thought the cross was idolatrous and complained that they must leave it in the porch of the church. Baring-Gould said 'fine, we'll change the lyric to 'with the cross of Jesus left behind the door'! 🤣

[@HeffalumpHorralump1]

You almost got me, for a minute I thought you’d gone to the dark side. The bbc should be ashamed of what it’s done to the documentary format! Great work, George. Everyday I resist the temptation to purchase the entire ‘lives of the saints’………every goddam day.

[@thedartmoorpodcast]

Haha! Thanks, Pete. And don't worry - I'm always undermining the format! You'll have to come on again at some point this year - let me know if you have any cool ideas!

[@guybirks9299]

I get your RSBG obsession George, RSBG clearly was a complex character... I must admit, that when I heard the "Keep it Supernatural' reference in relation to the Hound of the Baskervilles, I did literally punch the air with my fist 🙂 You went to my home town too (Exeter), and I was moved by that... Plus I think anyone who stems from Exeter is potentially gonna rate HIGH on any Complexity scale, if not blow the whole thing up! LOL... Loved the investigative journalist vibe in this video. Made my day. Melbourne seems drab in comparison. 😞

[@MichaelPhillips-h4q]

It was great to meet you to in Paignton made my day sorry about wrong name 😂😂😂😂

[@georgewall6428]

Haha! Made my day, too - don't normally get recognised, as you can imagine. Nice to meet you!

[@TheSonsofFalstaff]

As a fellow sufferer from this myself I would say that his negative treatment of tailors was merely an example of his sense of humour. Too often an innocent piss-take is seen as an attack. I think you were right when you said that his use of the term 'Squarson' to describe himself was an example of his sense of humour. He was taking the piss out of himself as he would with others.

[@ConkerKing]

Very funny 😁

[@dartmoordog7912]

I am reading "A Book Of Dartmoor" for the second time, hoping that viewing your excellent Podcast (not a Podcast) will assist in determining whether the author knew what he was talking about. The Rev. undoubtedly did a good job in replacing various stones on the moor, but I'm not sure that all of his prognostications about the history and ancient sites are at all accurate. He is a difficult person to assess.

[@thedartmoorpodcast]

Yes! I think his inscrutability is what draws me to his writings, too. There's something jarring about the way he gives very short shrift to the theories of others while throwing out some pretty speculative ideas himself! This could just be arrogance, of course, but I'm beginning to suspect he had an odd sense of humour where he sort of 'plays' a snobby character. We'll never know for sure!

[@dartmoordog7912]

He was definitely eccentric, I reckon. It's hard to reconcile an English parson delivering his sermon with a bat hanging from his clothing. He wrote numerous publications and books, many of which were ghost stories containing some very violent and/or bizarre characters and plots. He did not associate, or fit in, with fellow vicars, it seems, as he described them as being either brainless or mentally afflicted. It would be easy to become obsessed with tracking down his personality, but the more that is learned about him, the more is not known. He was prolific, eccentric, strange - and had a "gallows" sense of humour. I laughed to myself when I read that he once asked one of his daughters, "Whose little girl are you" A wicked sense of humour: Do you agree?

[@dickbenson-gyles5542]

Big mistake: His name: It's Sab as in 'cab', and 'ine' as in 'wine' NOT ' Sab' as in 'Babe' and 'ine' as in 'in'.

[@thedartmoorpodcast]

There is some debate about this, but I'm going with the way his great-granddaughter Merriol Almond says it is pronounced, as this was passed on through the family and so is, presumably, correct. (information from 'When I Walked Out').

[@jonathanpork-sausage617]

You should somehow stop the purgatory of teaching english to people who say "be like" and "WTF" and somehow make stuff like this for a living. All the best for 24, bro.

[@thedartmoorpodcast]

Ha! A Happy New Year to you! That would be great, but I'm afraid that I'm up against the curse of Old Crockern - no one shall make any money out of Dartmoor!

[@jonathanpork-sausage617]

Then go beyond, young man, beyond.....@@thedartmoorpodcast