=The Saxon Crypt=, sometimes called =St. Wilfrid's Needle=.--From a trap-door in the pavement below the piscina a flight of twelve steps winds down into a flat-roofed and descending passage, 2-1/2 feet wide and slightly over 6 feet high, which, running a few feet northwards and bending at right angles round the south-west tower pier, extends eastward for about 10 yards, with a descent of one step near the end, and terminates in a blank wall. There is a square-headed niche at the turn and a round-headed niche at the end, both meant, doubtless, to hold lights. Three feet from the end a round-headed doorway, 2 feet wide and over 6 feet high, opens northwards, with a descent of two more steps, into a barrel-vaulted chamber, 11 feet 5 inches long from east to west, 7 feet 7 inches wide, and 9 feet 10 inches high. In the north wall of this chamber, and approached by three rude steps, is the celebrated St. Wilfrid's Needle, a round-headed aperture pierced through into a passage that runs behind. This aperture was connected with one of those superstitions that so often flourished before the Reformation in notable centres of religion, and ability to pass through it or 'thread the needle' was regarded as a test of female chastity; but it was, of course, in the later middle ages that this superstition arose, and the 'needle' (or rather needle's eye) is evidently only one of the original niches with the back knocked out. Of these niches (which again were doubtless for lights) there are four in the chamber besides the 'needle,'--one in each wall,--and, like the niche, at the end of the passage of entrance, they all have semicircular heads each cut in a single stone. That in the west wall has a hole or cup at the bottom, probably to hold oil in which a wick might float, while the others (except the 'needle') have a sort of funnel at the top, doubtless to catch the soot from lamps. In the east wall there is also a round-headed recess of larger size, the meaning of which will be discussed later. An excavation made in 1900 has lowered the earthen floor and revealed a set-off running round the chamber,[59] and upon the ground at the east end are traces of a later mediaeval altar, namely, a long stone parallel with the east wall and having behind it a small rectangular enclosure bounded by other wrought stones. Some of the latter were only laid bare at the above-mentioned excavation, when, moreover, the enclosure was found to be a pit containing bones, some of which had belonged to a man, others to an ox, others to a bird. These were probably regarded as relics, and may have been buried here at the Reformation for safety,[60] but it is possible that they were placed here at an earlier period, and that this is an instance of a relic-pit. Two other deposits have been found in the crypt in modern times, one behind the niche in the south wall of this chamber, the other behind the niche at the end of the passage of entrance.