78 THE PAST AND FUTURE OF THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
Having been disappointed in trying to learn anything about the
Dane Pits, I turned northward to the Isle of Thanet, in order to visit
the scene of the story of Thunnor's leap, which is thus told by
Hasted : "Egbert, King of Kent, murdered his two nephews, at the
instigation and by the hand of Thunnor. To expiate his crime, the
king granted to Domneva, their mother, a place in Thanet in which
she might build a monastery, with an endowment of land around it.
She asked for as much land as her deer could run over at one course.
The deer was loosed at Westgate, in Birchington, in the presence of
the king and his nobles. Thunnor. endeavouring to obstruct the
deer's course, the earth opened and swallowed him up, leaving the
name of Thunnor's Leap to the place where he fell." This "puteus
Thunnor," or Thunnor's Leap (says Hasted) is very plainly the old
chalk pit called Minster Chalk Pit, "puteus Thunnor" being the name
given by the annalist of St. Augustine's monastery. Now, as the
word "puteus '' implies a well or well-like pit, and as a tradition such
as the above is likely to have had some foundation in fact, the most
likely explanation of Thunnor's (or some one else's) mysterious disap-
pearance seemed to me to be that he tumbled down an imperfectly
filled-up denehole. I found the old chalk-pit at Minster—that near
the Prospect Inn—to be a large open pit 70 or 80 yards in diameter,
and from 25 to 35 feet deep, the bottom being covered with grass.
From the road close to this pit there is an extensive view, Rich-
borough and the Reculvers being both visible; yet there is nothing
in the outline of the gently swelling ground to attract the attention
of visitors not knowing the locality to this particular spot. From the
marsh at Minster the distance is nearly a mile. The situation of the
chalk-pit is, in short, just what the denehole makers seem to have
considered most suitable for their excavations. I was somewhat
surprised, nevertheless, to find, on examining the sides of the chalk-
pit, indications there suggesting the former presence of deneholes.
In one case the appearance was that of an almost worked-away dene-
hole of the beehive shape, the floor of which had been about 10 feet
above the level of the present general floor of the pit. In another
part of the pit the indications suggested that two beehive-shaped
deneholes, situated very close to each other, had been there almost
entirely destroyed. Altogether there were signs of the former exist-
ence of seven or eight distinct deneholes in the sides of this chalk-
pit. And, for my part, I have little doubt that at this spot a group
of deneholes formerly existed, though I must admit that the appear-