The Devon Wild Men

And, no, I'm not talking about Jon Downes! However, it is Jon who supplies the text for today's post, and who says:

"From the Cannibals of Clovelly, Devon to the Brew Crew of Treworgey, Cornwall, the whole area has attracted people who wish to live outside of our recognized society; and these people have often degenerated into a wild and lawless existence, sometimes even reverting to a surprisingly primitive lifestyle.

"As well as these people who though undoubtedly wild men were not wild men, there are a number of reports of entities whose nature seems far more analogous to some of the stranger 'big hairy men' reports from around the world.

"The Devon folklorist Theo Brown collected a number of such stories, including one chilling recollection by a friend of hers who had been walking alone at dusk near the Neolithic earthworks at the top of Lustleigh Cleave on the extreme east side of Dartmoor.

"Lustleigh Cleave is an extraordinarily strange place, and it appears to be one of those 'window areas' where an inordinate number of unexplained incidents and anomalous phenomena seem to take place on an almost monotonous basis.

"I have got reports of sightings of a ghostly Tudor hunting party, mysterious lights in the sky, and even the apparitions of a pair of Roman centurions. But Theo Brown's friend saw, clearly, a family of 'cavemen,' either naked and covered in hair or wrapped in the shaggy pelts of some wild animal, shambling around the stone circle at the top of the cleave."