THE STORY OF THE BETTISCOMBE SKULL. 179 



aspect to the tradition. From her I subsequently received an 

 indignant protest against these innovations. I have also 

 myself several times endeavoured to refute in periodicals 

 and otherwise this attribute of " screaming," but, apparently, 

 to little purpose ; for only a year or two ago this same old 

 lady sent me a copy of a periodical called The World and His 

 Wife, in which appeared an illustrated article of " Old Haunted 

 Houses," by Mr. C. G. Harper, whom we know in connection 

 with our own county as the author of " The Hardy Country," 

 published in the " Pilgrimage Series " in 1904. 



The account given in this work agrees with that quoted 

 from Dr. Ingram's " Haunted Houses," excepting the mention 

 of a Roman Catholic priest as having been the negro's master. 

 About the same time " Pearson's Magazine " contained a 

 graphic description of the Screaming Skull of Burton Agnes 

 Hall, Yorkshire ; to which was appended a note to the 

 effect that " another ' Screaming Skull ' is preserved at 

 Bettiscombe in Dorsetshire," and giving the same details 

 referred to by Dr. Ingram. 



So much for this sensational and, I believe, thoroughly 

 unearned attribute to the very quiet-looking emblem of 

 mortality known as the " Bettiscombe Skull," and I will now 

 give you an account of a visit I paid to it myself a little 

 later in point of time than the visit of Dr. Garnett's party, 

 and the account of which appeared in the " Somerset and 

 Dorset Notes and Queries " (p. 252 to 255). 



I happened to be in the neighbourhood, and not having at that time seen the 

 abiding -place of the " famous skull," about which I had written some years pre- 

 viously, I determined to make an effort to do so ; and lest I should, by my 

 visit, invoke the spell of any " malign influence," I took with me the rector 

 of tho parish and a neighbouring clergyman who happened to be with him at 

 the time. Thus accompanied and protected, I arrived at the manor-houso 

 (situated in the Vale of Marshwood that vale as to which Hutchins quaintly 

 observed, upwards of a century ago, " few gentry ever resided in this tract " 

 and nestling at the foot of a picturesque combe not far from Dorset's highest 

 point the famous Pilsdon Pen) evidently an early Georgian restoration 

 of a much earlier building, aa the oak beams in the hall of considerable 

 age abundantly testified. The house boasted of a handsome oak staircase ; 



