Source: Anna Eliza Bray, A Description of the Parts of Devonshire Bordering on the Tamar and the Tavy, 1836, vol. 2, pp. 170–75.
narrator: Unknown, Devon.
type: III ML8005 ‘The Soldier’s Return’.
I
One day whilst Sir Francis Drake was playing at the game of Kales on the Hoe at Plymouth, it was announced to him that a foreign fleet (the Armada, I suppose) was sailing into the harbour close by. He showed no alarm at the intelligence, but persisted in playing out his game. When this was concluded, he ordered a large block of timber and a hatchet to be brought to him. He bared his arms, took the axe in hand and manfully chopped up the wood into sundry smaller blocks. These he hurled into the sea, while, at his command, every block arose a fire-ship; and, within a short space of time, a general destruction of the enemy’s fleet took place in consequence of the irresistible strength of those vessels he had called up to ‘flame amazement’ on the foes of Elizabeth and of England.
II
The people of Plymouth were so destitute of water in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, that they were obliged to send their clothes to Plympton to be washed in fresh water. Sir Francis Drake resolved to rid them of this inconvenience. So he called for his horse, mounted, rode to Dartmoor, and hunted about till he found a very fine spring. Having fixed on one that would suit his purpose, he gave a smart lash to his horse’s side, pronouncing as he did so some magical words, when off went the animal as fast as he could gallop, and the stream followed his heels all the way into the town.
III
The good people here say that whilst the ‘old warrior’ was abroad, his lady, not hearing from him for seven years, considered he must be dead, and that she was free to marry again. Her choice was made – the nuptial day fixed, and the parties had assembled in the church. Now it so happened that at this very hour
Sir Francis Drake was at the antipodes of Devonshire, and one of his spirits, who let him know from time to time how things went on in England, whispered in his ear in what manner he was about to lose his wife. Sir Francis rose up in haste, charged one of his great guns, and sent off a cannon ball so truly aimed that it shot up right through the globe, forced its way into the church, and fell with a loud explosion between the lady and her intended bride-groom.
Iv
The story says that whilst he was once sailing in foreign seas he had on board the vessel a boy of uncommonly quick parts. In order to put them to the proof, Sir Francis questioned the youth and bade him tell what might be their antipodes at that moment. The boy without hesitation told him Barton Place (for so Buck-land Abbey was then called), the Admiral’s own mansion in his native county. After the ship had made some further progress Sir Francis repeated his question, and the answer he received was, that they were then at the antipodes of London Bridge. Drake, surprised at the accuracy of the boy’s knowledge, exclaimed ‘Hast thou, too, a devil? If I let thee live, there will be one a greater man than I am in the world’; and, so saying, he threw the lad overboard into the sea, where he perished.
Anna Bray’s survey of Devon lore, couched as a series of letters to Robert Southey, is one of the first and fullest of such local investigations, though marred by the author’s somewhat high-flown style. These anecdotes of Drake as necromancer show romantic legend accreting to an heroic figure. Mrs Bray quotes Southey’s response to her letter on Drake, in which he gives a slightly different account of the interrupted wedding. In this Sir Francis returns as a beggar to ask alms from his wife, but is recognized by his smile: an incident, as Southey notes, ‘borrowed from Guy, Earl of Warwick . . . and other romances’. Southey quotes Lope de Vega as saying that he had heard of Drake’s dealings with the Devil while serving in the Armada, from soldiers who had been prisoners in England. Among other legends touched on by Mrs Bray is one that Drake offered to make his home town of Tavistock, which is fourteen miles inland, into a sea- port, in return for a coveted estate. Further legends of Drake can be found in J. R. W. Coxhead’s The Devil in Devon (1967, p. 9) and Briggs and Tongue’s Folktales of England (1965, p. 94).
—
Legends of Sir Francis Drake was extracted from Neil Philip’s The Watkins Book of English Folktales, priced £14.99. Available from 11th October on Amazon and in all good book stores. Giveaway via our Instagram and Patreon.