Why Moonrakers? The Moonrakers Legend
There are variations on the legend of Moonrakers and the location of the legend is claimed by many locales within Wiltshire and a couple outside.The form told by Wiltshire's detractors is that a traveller came upon some drunken Wiltshire men one moonlit night. They were trying to rake a round glowing object from a pool. The rakers claimed it was a large cheese they were trying to retrieve; the traveller declared it was obviously a reflection of the moon. No imagination, travellers.
Wiltshire's own variant on this is that smugglers detected an approaching Exciseman (revenue agent) on a bright moonlit night. In order to waylay suspicion the smugglers dumped the contraband (usually barrels or kegs of French brandy) into a nearby pond. When the Exciseman had gone they began to fish out the barrels with hay rakes. However, the Exciseman came back and asked them what they were doing. They told him it was surely obvious, they were raking out the cheese they could see in the water. The Exciseman laughed at them for being so stupid and rode off. The "moonrakers" left off raking the moon, laughed at the Exciseman's naivety and continued to recover their kegs.
Variations on the second version include the smugglers coming from Bristol, Bishops Canning and elsewhere but Devizes seems a popular place for the enactment. The period tends to be "a while ago", which is sometimes acknowledged as being the 17th or 18th century.
This is my first event in the best part of a fair while, I have managed to get back in our old favourite pub The Moonrakers so pop along for a chat and put some faces to those names. There is plenty of parking in the pub car park or if that is full, then down the side street.