Georgiansilver wrote in a previous post "The people mentioned are also real people, or were should I say... Tom Cobley, who died in 1794 is buried in Spreyton just North of Dartmoor... and his grave can be found there......" - and I've seen claims on many other websites that the story is based on real events that took place around 1800 or so - but this makes no sense, given that Widecombe Fair only started up in 1850. Can anyone throw any light on this discrepancy? Why is there such a strong tradition that the song describes real people and events that lived and took place long before the Fair that they were supposedly going to existed?