THE STORY OP THE BETTISCOMBE SKULL. 181 



partition in which was inserted a small doorway, constituting a chamber of 

 about 15ft. by 12ft. immediately under the tiles, and containing a small, 

 round, brick fire-place with two window apertures at the end, which were 

 stopped up. This would have formed a secure retreat from any sudden 

 surprise, when, if danger became more imminent by a threatened search of 

 the house, it might be averted by a timely resort to the " hole ! " Of course 

 it may have had other uses, but a better place of concealment or confinement 

 can hardly have been imagined. 



From time to time I have heard other rumours as to the ownership of the 

 skull, one amongst them that it belonged to a young lady who had died, or 

 had been made away with, after a long period of confinement in the house. To 

 this story, if the skull be that of a woman, the existence of this partitioned-off 

 chamber lends a certain amount of corroboration ; but of the negro variant, as 

 related by Miss Garnett, I do not remember ever to have heard. 



Whatever may be its origin, the superstition is still, I will not say believed in, 

 but sufficiently established to afford protection to the skull around which it 

 clings ; an amusing instance of which I can relate. A former tenant of 

 the farm once, in incredulity or in anger, threw the skull into a duck-pond 

 opposite the house. A few mornings afterwards he was observed stealthily 

 raking out the pond until he had fished up the skull, when it was returned 

 to its old place in the house. It was said that Farmer G. had had a bad time 

 of it during the interval and had been much disturbed by all kinds of noises ! 

 Whether these noises were caused by any other agency than that of the bats, 

 owls, &c., before mentioned, operating upon a conscience rendered unusually 

 susceptible by such a terrible " act of desecration," this deponent knoweth 

 not. Suffice it to say that there the skull rests in its accustomed place, there 

 in the words of Macaulay 



" To witness if I lie." 



And there may it long remain to attract and awe those visitors and 

 lovers of folk-lore whose reverent feelings may lead them to make a pious 

 pilgrimage to its shrine, but not, let us hope, to the annoyance of the " good 

 woman of the house," who must find it hard sometimes to retain her good 

 nature under the many inquisitive and often irreverent remarks of her visitors. 



I have recently endeavoured to turn these pilgrimages to some practical 

 account ; and on my last visit to Bettiscombe before leaving Dorset I pro- 

 cured a " Visitors' Book," on the fly-leaf of which I wrote the account of the 

 history of the skull and its superstition as I had first heard it, and as it appeared 

 in " Notes and Queries " some twenty years ago. 



I further suggested to the good wife of the occupant of the farm (who was 

 the churchwarden of the parish, which had little but the offerings of a very 

 limited agricultural class to support its church) that a box should be kept in 

 the hall for the purpose of obtaining contributions for the much-needed repairs 

 on the church from such visitors as might be willing to make some slight return 



