to discover whose it might be. After asking several locals and searching maps and guidebooks without success, she eventually finds that "Granny Caunter" knows the story: Patricia Milton, writing in 2006, points out that Chase was being disingenuous in her novel, because as early as 1905 the grave was being mentioned in guidebooks, and coach drivers were already pointing it out to tourists. Later versions By 1965 Jay's Grave had become a major Dartmoor attraction, with tourist coaches stopping there while the driver/guide related their own version of the story. The mysterious appearance of fresh flowers upon the grave was always mentioned. Recent versions of the legend include embellishments such as the orphaned baby being taken into the Poor House in Newton Abbot or Wolborough where she was given the name Mary Jay. She now sometimes acquires the name Kitty after being sent to Canna Farm as a teenage apprentice. In one version of the tale, she is raped by a local farmhand. In another version, she finds romance with the farmer's son. Either way, she becomes pregnant which results in her being thrown out of the farm and left with a reputation. Such is her shame and despair that she hangs herself in a barn, or perhaps from the great kitchen fireplace lintel, or else she drowns herself in a shallow pool. It is now said that the three local parishes of Widecombe-in-the-Moor, North Bovey and Manaton all refused to bury her body within consecrated ground, so she was buried at a crossroads, which was standard practice for suicide victims at the time. It is also often said that this crossroads is at the point where the three parishes met, though the Ordnance Survey map confirms that this is not the case. The grave There are always fresh flowers on the grave, the placement of which is the subject of local folklore – some claim they are placed there by pixies, but it is known that the author Beatrice Chase was one person who did this, before her death in 1955. By 2007 the placing of flowers had expanded into all sorts of votive offerings: coins, candles, shells, small crosses and toys, for instance. Motorists, passing at night, claim to have glimpsed ghostly figures in their headlights, others report seeing a dark, hooded figure kneeling there. Notable uses of the story Jay's Grave was the inspiration for John Galsworthy's