Cow castle (aka Ring Castle) was built by the pixies at the confluence of the Barle and White Water. The good pixies were constantly at war with the bad mine spirits. The pixie queen decided to build the castle on this conical hill. Each stone and turf was carefully imbued with the memory of a good deed. Thus the whole place was infused with good vibes and the evil mine spirits just couldn’t get in.
The Reverend George Tugwell (in his North Devon Scenery Book of 1863 – and noted in Bord’s 2004 ‘Fairy Sites’) also said that the fairies placed a standing stone at the entrance, and that people had seen them as bright lights flying around the fort.
In Toulson’s ‘Moors of the Southwest 1’ (1983) she describes a conical outcrop of rock which is just to the south of Cow Castle, near the river. It is known as the Calf, and she says it was this that the fairies built to protect themselves from the earth spirits.