Miscellanea. 48 1
was, for instance, no grave-yard at Plush before 1847, when the old chapel of ease was pulled down and a new one was built, to which a large burial-place was attached.
George Cains, the toll-keeper at Lyon's Gate, used to watch all midsummer's night to see the spirits go to Buckland Church and come back again. If the spirits of any persons went to Buckland Church and did not return, those persons would die during the year. Cains said to a woman : " You have a fine little girl there, but her spirit did not come back from the church," and she died within a year. — [Thomas Fox, aged 82, born at Cerne, and his parents at Buckland Newton.]
12. At Batcombe most of the old cottages have been destroyed, and but few new ones erected. With one exception, no one is living in the place who was born there. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, has an old bell, without date, but with the legend SCA MARIA MAGDALENE. The cdificc is Tcmotc from the village, and stands in a hollow almost surrounded by lofty hills. Its square tower has four corner pinnacles, of which it is evident that one has been rebuilt.
" Conjurer Mintern " used to live at Batcombe. On one occasion he went from home and " forgot that his books were left open." Suddenly remembering them, he hastened back, and his horse's hoof just touched one of the pinnacles on the tower of Batcombe Church, and made it lean over, and left the print of his horse's shoe on the tower, where it remains to this day. This was in my grandfather' s time. In my time " Conjurer Curtis " lived there. Curtis, the blacksmith of Batcombe, a son or grandson of the "conjurer," was himself imprisoned for "conjuring" within Fox's memory. The original Curtis was ' a wise man and a good man." What he told folk was always for their good. He told them how to stop the power of witches. — [Fox.]
13. There used to be the setting up of the maypole at Piddle- trenthide. — [Mrs. Astell.]
And at many other villages in my childhood. — [Mr. Thomas Hardy.]
At Buckland Newton the maypole was set up on the knap there, which is rising ground in the midst of the village. — [Fox.]
The celebration of tlic maypole used to be a great event at Cerne. In 1635 there seems to have been an attempt to suppress this function. In the volume of the Cerne Abbas Churchwarden's
VOL. X. 2 I
