The Barrow Thieves

Everyone knows there’s treasure in the burial mounds that are scattered across Wiltshire. But on Bowerchalke Down there was a mound that contained a coffin made entirely of gold. The trick to getting it out of the mound? Staying silent. The young men of Bower Chalke went up on the down one moonlit night, and at the midnight hour they heaved out the coffin without saying a word. Away across the downs they hauled it, but they were never seen in the village again. Sometimes, on moonlit winter’s nights, if you look up at Bowerchalke Down, you can see them still hauling the coffin across the hill, never speaking; silent ghosts trapped in their task for ever.