Desolate places always cause unease in lone travelers, especially after dark, when evil spirits are on the move in search of prey. An upland area in Devon, England, known as Dartmoor is rich in stories about the perils awaiting anyone foolhardy enough to traverse the moors by night. Pixies and ghosts wandered among the prehistoric standing stones that still litter the landscape like broken teeth, but the most fearsome denizen of Dartmoor was a demonic huntsman accompanied by a pack of spectral hounds. In a story preserved by folklorist Sabine Baring-Gould (1834–1924), a drunken moorman making his way on a stormy night encountered this dark rider and petitioned him for a share of his game, only to recoil in horror upon his return home when lantern light revealed what he had received.
There existed formerly a belief on Dartmoor that it was hunted over at night in storm by a black sportsman, with black fire-breathing hounds, called the “Wish Hounds.” They could be heard in full cry, and occasionally the blast of the hunter’s horn on stormy nights.
One night a moorman was riding home from Widecombe. There had been a fair there; he had made money, and had taken something to keep out the cold, for the night promised to be one of tempest. He started on his homeward way. The moon shone out occasionally between the whirling masses of thick vapor. The horse knew the way better perhaps than his master. The rider had traversed the great ridge of Hameldon, and was mounting a moor on which stands a circle of upright stones—reputedly a Druid circle, and said to dance on Christmas Eve—when he heard a sound that startled him—a horn, and then past him swept without sound of footfall a pack of black dogs.
The moorman was not frightened—he had taken in too much Dutch courage for that—and when a minute after the black hunter came up, he shouted to him, “Hey huntsman, what sport? Give us some of your game.”
“Take that,” answered the hunter, and flung him something which the man caught and held in his arm. Then the mysterious rider passed on. An hour elapsed before the moorman reached his home. As he had jogged on, he had wondered what sort of game he had been given. It was too large for a hare, too small for a deer. Provokingly, not once since the encounter had the moon flashed forth. Now that he was at his door, he swung himself from his horse, and still carrying the game, shouted for a lantern.
The light was brought. With one hand the fellow took it, then raised it to throw a ray on that which he held in his arm—the game hunted and won by the Black Rider. It was his own baby, dead and cold.