Winter Trees / All Hands Books (ePub)

The Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould of Lew Trenchard in Devon, England, was an Anglican priest, hagiographer, antiquarian, novelist, folk song collector and eclectic scholar. His bibliography consists of more than 1240 publications, though this list continues to grow.

Sabine Baring-Gould was born in Exeter in 1834. His father took the family on a series of European tours that were to last most of his childhood. During a brief period of schooling in Mannheim he discovered Nordic literature, sparking an interest in folklore, philology and antiquarian pursuits that was to shape his life. Baring-Gould's father forbade him to enter the church on pain of disinheritance. He became a teacher after he graduated and at the age of thirty, finally overcame his father's objections and became a priest. At Baring-Gould's first post at Horbury, Yorkshire, he met the teenage mill-girl, Grace Taylor, whom he married. They had 15 children. He also started to collect and publish folklore, household tales, and songs from the mill-workers and boat-people who were his special charge. In 1881 he returned to the family home at Lewtrenchard in West Devon. He was, by then, established as a writer of more than 1,200 books and magazine articles. These funded work to rebuild the house, church and estate that had been neglected by his father and grandfather.