The Spirit of Hound’s Pool

In the hushed hollows of Dean Combe, where South Devon’s River Avon feeds the shadowed depths of Hound’s Pool beneath a relentless waterfall, the spirit of Thomas Knowles—a master weaver of the early 1600s—endures as a spectral black dog, bound by a parson’s curse to an endless task. Once consumed by his loom’s unyielding rhythm, Knowles’ death in 1615 did not still his hands; his ghost wove on until Parson Elias Taverner banished him to the pool with a pierced nutshell, condemning him to empty its waters at midday and midnight, a futile labour that haunts the village still. Locals whisper of the dog’s glowing eyes and dripping shell, seen under sun or moon, a chilling echo of obsession that weaves Dean Prior’s lore with threads of dread and eternal toil.