Dartmoor has many tales of ghosts and hauntings across the moor and one of those very well known stories is that of the legendary Hairy Hands of Dartmoor.
The Hairy Hands is said to be of a pair of disembodied hands that will appear suddenly to unwary travellers driving along the B3212, grabbing at the steering wheel forcing them off the road and disappearing without a trace.
There is also the story of a woman camping nearby in Bellever Forest with her husband who was awoken by the noise of scraping at the window of their camper van. As her eyes adjusted to the dark night, she noticed a pair of hairy hands trying to get into the gap in the window of the van. She frantically screamed, making the sign of the cross with her hands, to which the hairy hands promptly disappeared.
Another is of a doctor who worked at Dartmoor Prison, who was travelling one night across the B3212 on his motorcycle with his children sat in the sidecar. He suddenly started swerving across the road and shouted at his two girls to jump from the vehicle, and as they did one of the girls noticed a pair of hairy hands grabbing at the handle bars as she jumped from the sidecar. Her father lost control of his motorcycle and thus killing him instantly as he verged off the road.
Nobody really knows where the stories have come from or why the hands appear to people along this stretch of road, but one such story is of a local man who worked at the old powder mills factory many years ago.
The man who was described as a very stocky built and hairy person, had stopped off at his local tavern for a well deserved drink at the end of a hard days work at the gun factory. He later realised he had forgotten something and returned back to the factory that evening, forgetting to put on his special boots and created a spark which ignited the gun powder, creating a huge explosion which blew an entire part of the factory and himself to obliteration.
After the fire had been put out at the factory, the only thing found of the local man was his bloodied severed hairy hands and is now said to be haunting any unwary travellers and people in this area.
Enjoy the cache and we urge you to take special care when travelling to and from this location, and let you not be the next unfortunate victim of the Hairy Hands of Dartmoor!!
Congratulations to Dartmoor Dave for being the first to find.