S. Baring-Gould

Sabine Baring-Gould (1834–1924) was an English clergyman, squire, novelist, folklorist and antiquary. Born in Exeter and raised partly on the Continent, he was ordained in 1864, married a mill girl from his Yorkshire parish and in 1881 inherited the family estate of Lew Trenchard in Devon, where he appointed himself rector and lived for forty years. He wrote more than 1,200 publications: hymns, including Onward, Christian Soldiers; the sixteen-volume Lives of the Saints; The Book of Were-Wolves; dozens of novels led by Mehalah; and the collections of Devon and Cornish folk songs he gathered from laborers and fishermen. He wrote standing up, at a desk, in the small hours.