This gruesome tale has one 19thC Cornish man trying to win a wager by exploiting fear and superstition of another.

Another story, which, though it is related as having happened in Cornwall, is in reality a widely diffused folk–tale, describes how a certain man took on a wager to enter the parish charnel–house at midnight, in order to bring away one of the skulls which used frequently to be kept in such places. True to his word, on the appointed night the man arrived, and after groping about for some moments in the darkness, laid old of a skull. He was just making off with it when a sepulchral voice cried out from above his head: 'That's mine!' Hastily dropping the skull the man waited for some moments and then, spurred on by the thought of the wager, stretched forth his trembling hands and picked up another. He had almost reached the door with this when the voice called out again in a more threatening tone: 'That's mine!' Once again he made haste to replace the skull on the shelf, then, girding himself for one last effort, grasped hold of a third. Hardly had he done so before the voice snapped out with even greater menace: 'That's mine!'

'What!' exclaimed the man, 'are they all thine? Thee great liard, whoever heard of a man living or dead with three skulls? I tell 'ee I will have one!'

Saying which, he grasped the third skull under one arm, and dashed from the place with all speed. His action won him the wager, and it was a somewhat crestfallen figure which shortly afterwards dropped down from the rafters, and made its way to the public–house, where the hero of the hour was loudly vaunting the powers of darkness which he had overcome!

Courage and a moment of common–sense lucidity save the day, er, night, for this man.