above ground, none can say. It would seem probable, however, that it was taken along with the wainscoting out of the earlier house.
The prevailing superstition is that, if it be brought out of the house, the house itself will rock to its foundations, and the person guilty of the sacrilegious act will die within the year. The house had remained uninhabited for some years until, about 1760 or 1770, a farmer came into occupation. Finding the skull, he declared with an oath that he would not have the thing there, and he had it thrown into a pooi of water. During that night and the next the farmer heard some uncanny noises, and on the third day he said he would have the skull back. He did so, and then, as the story goes, all the noises ceased. It has been carefully preserved since, and kept in a kind of loft under the roof in a cigar box.
In Looe Island, off East and West Looe, is still, or was a few years ago, a skull preserved in a cupboard in the sitting-room, behind glass. I have not been able to find any tradition connected with it. Looe Island was at one time a great resort of smugglers, till a coastguard station was established on it.
At Warbleton Priory, near Heathfield, in Sussex, were two skulls preserved till some few years ago, when they were stolen, greatly