Baring Gould continues: “When a child I heard the story, but somewhat varied, that Lady Howard drove nightly from Okehampton Castle to Launceston Castle in a black coach driven by a headless coachman, and preceded by a fire-breathing black hound that when the coach stopped at a door, there was sure to be a death in that house the same night. There was a ballad about it, of which I can only recall fragments.” (209 – 210).
From those fragments Baring-Gould reconstructs the ballad as follows:
My ladye hath a sable coach,
And horses two and four;
My ladye hath a black blood-hound
That runneth on before.
My ladye’s coach hath nodding plumes,
The driver hath no head;
My ladye is an ashen white,
As one that long is dead.
“Now pray step in!” my ladye saith,
“Now pray step in and ride.”
I thank thee, I had rather walk
Than gather to thy side.
The wheels go round without a sound,
Or tramp or turn of wheels;
As cloud at night, in pale moonlight,
Along the carriage steals.
“Now pray step in!” my ladye saith,
“Now prithee come to me.”
She takes the baby from the crib,
She sits it on her knee.
“Now pray step in!” my ladye saith,
“Now pray step in and ride.”
Then deadly pale, in waving veil,
She takes to her the bride.
“Now pray step in!” my ladye saith,
“There’s room I wot for you.”
She wav’d her hand, the coach did stand,
The Squire within she drew.
“Now pray step in!” my ladye saith,
“Why shouldst thou trudge afoot?”
She took the gaffer in by her,
His crutches in the boot.
I’d rather walk a hundred miles,
And run by night and day,
Than have that carriage halt for me
And hear my ladye say-
“Now pray step in, and make no din,
Step in with me to ride ;
There’s room, I trow, by me for you,
And all the world beside.”
Cecilia Eng
Cecilia Eng is a folk singer from Portland Oregon. She has a version of ‘Lady Howards Coach’ on her first album Of Shoes and Ships.
Will Carnell and Alexa Romanes
Lustleigh composer William Carnell and writer Alexa Romanes produced together a cantata based on the weird and wonderful legends of Dartmoor.
Alexa is a folklore enthusiast and a member of Cogs and Wheels Ladies’ Morris. Will Carnell is an established composer who lives on the edge of Dartmoor.
One of the songs on their CD A Dartmoor Cantata is ‘Lady Howards Coach’, sung by the Lustleigh Choir.
Bibliography
Baring-Gould, Sabine (1891). Songs of the West.
Baring-Gould, Sabine (1908). Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.
www.legendarydartmoor.com
www.bbc.co.uk/devon
www.litgothic.com
Crossing, William (1914,1997 edn). Folklore and Legends of Dartmoor.
What’s Afloat? Devon’s Folk Magazine. No 83.