Challacombe is a small village on the western border of Exmoor, seven or eight miles south of Lynton, and the church looks far over the moors. Westcote derives the name from 'Choldicombe, or rather Coldecombe, from its cold situation, next neighbour to Exmoor;' and he speaks of 'divers hillocks of earth and stones ... termed burrows and distinguished by sundry names,' in the parish, and hints at their uncanny nature by telling how 'fiery dragons have been seen flying and lighting on them.' Such tales he dismisses scornfully, but he tells of 'a strange accident' that happened 'within these seven years, verified by oath of the party, who otherwise might have had credit for his honesty.' A labouring man, having saved enough money to buy a few acres of waste land, began to build himself a house on it, and from a burrow near by he fetched stones and earth. He had cut deep into the hillock, when 'he found therein a little place, as it had been a large oven, fairly, strongly, and closely walled up; which comforted him much, hoping that some great good would befall him, and that there might be some treasure there hidden to maintain him more liberally and with less labour in his old years: wherewith encouraged he plies his work earnestly until he had broken a hole through this wall, in the cavity whereof he espied an earthen pot, which caused him to multiply his strokes until he might make the orifice thereof large enough to take out the pot, which his earnest desire made not long a-doing; but as he thrust in his arm and fastened his hand thereon he suddenly heard, or seemed to hear, the noise of the trampling or treading of horses coming, as he thought, towards him, which caused him to forbear and arise from the place, fearing the comers would take his purchase from him (for he assured himself it was treasure); but looking about every way to see what company this was, he saw neither horse nor man in view. To the pot again he goes, and had the like success a second time; and yet, looking all about, could ken nothing. At the third time he brings it away, and therein only a few ashes and bones, as if they had been of children, or the like. But the man, whether by the fear, which yet he denied, or other cause, which I cannot comprehend, in very short time after lost senses both of sight and hearing, and in less than three months consuming died.' This tale is followed by another, of a 'mystical sciencer,' and Westcote finishes with the comment that the stories are 'not unfit tales for winter nights when you roast crabs by the fire, whereof this parish yields none, the climate is too cold, only the fine dainty fruits of wortles and blackberries.'