Various mounds, cairns and barrows lie here, between Dunkery Beacon and Exmoor’s remote highest church at Stoke Pero. It’s got a bit of a spooky reputation. On St John’s Eve (that is, the night before Midsummer Day) in 1942 an old carter asked Ruth Tongue to accompany him up Ley Hill (just to the north). From there they watched little marsh lights moving aroud by Stoke Pero and Dunkery. These were said to be spunkies (Somerset willo the wisps) gathering to Stoke Pero church, where they would guide the ghosts of all those people who would die the following year. Spooky.
(R Tongue – ‘Somerset Folklore’ 1965)
