Ok, so the Udal paragraph wasn't in the pamphlet which I have now found, intriguingly in a box marked 'mother'. It's probably still worth looking at his works, he was a pretty good folklorist.

The link (now that I've got it to open properly) basically expands on the pamphlet I have which I can now see is the original of the 'three pages of text' mentioned, which until now has been the most written upon the subject.

The pamphlet is by H S L Dewar FRAI and was published in 1962 with a second edition in 1968 (which is the copy I have).

I would suggest that the chain that Daniel Quinn doesn't know the purpose of, is the chain that worked the jaw. If the thing is as heavy as the descriptions would have us believe, then string would not have been sufficient to pull the jaw up.


Gwilym, the names are Cave (there was still a gentleman of that surname alive in Dorchester until at least 1998) and Swaffield - a name that was fairly common across Dorset, lots of them in Abbotsbury, a village also owned by the Earl of Ilchester, and Portesham in the 1880s. PM me some surnames and I'll look in my records to see if we're related!

LTS