Of Dartmoor and its Borderland. 175 For the most part the Dartmoor Crosses, as will have been seen, were erected as marks to the paths which were trodden by travellers in the olden days, and as we pursue these paths now, we are carried back in imagination to the time when over them passed the lordly abbot, the knight with his body-guard of servitors, the merchant journeying with his commodities, or bands of pilgrims bound to the shrine of their patron saint. The grey cross on the heath would serve not only to point out their road, but also to keep them in remembrance of One who gave His life that mankind might not perish. Wynken de Worde in 1496 printed a treatise on the ten commandments, in which occurs the following : —
- For this reason ben Crosses by ye waye, that whan folke
passynge see the Crosses, they sholde thynke on Him that deyed on the Cross, and worshyppe Hym above all thynge." Here was the emblem of his religion standing before the traveller, and bidding him, by the memories it would call forth, cling to it and shun evil. In ancient Egypt figures of Pascht, the avenger of crime, were set up at the junction of roads to remind the people that guilt would be punished ; and while these old crosses would tell the same tale, they would also speak of the reward in store for those who "trust in the Lord, and do good " (Psalm xxxvii., 3). There are many old paths on the moor besides the ones we have here noticed, but with the exception of Cut Lane and the Lich Path, none so interesting as those which led to the four great religious houses on the borders of the southern part of the moor. The paths in its northern division are of a different character ; no abbeys were on its verge, and those who passed over its green tracks were chiefly moormen and the settlers in the forest. The crosses of the moor are, generally speaking, rudely fashioned, and are, without exception, Latin crosses. It is true that a few of them, such as the one near Cadaford Bridge, and Spurrell's Cross, now present the Greek form, but this, is owing simply to the shaft having been broken off and lost. Most of them face east and west, but there are exceptions to this. Siward's Cross is the only one mentioned in any perambulation of the forest, and none but that and Hobajon's Cross are marked on the old map.
