Eric Dauncey Tongue (doubtless a relation to Ruth, below) had an unpleasant experience at these barrows in 1908. He saw ‘a crouching form like a rock with matted hair all over it and pale flat eyes’ – ‘the most terrifying thing he had ever seen.’ When he spoke of the experience twenty years on he still emphasised its terrifying nature, although by this time he must have had some moments as he had become a District Commissioner and big game hunter in East Africa. He believed that what he had seen was a ‘barrow guardian’.
In ‘Somerset Folklore’ by Ruth Tongue (!965).