Plumber Discovers Jaw Bone, Other Remains During Bathroom Renovation
A 36-year-old plumber in the U.K. was given the shock of his life when he discovered about 20 bones while repairing a home. Jonathan Betts was clearing out and renovating a 200-year-old cottage when he came across the gruesome find.
On January 6, Betts posted to TikTok a video showing himself unearthing bones of unidentified origin from under the home. He first found smaller remains, indicating an animal, before unearthing much larger pieces that led him to a darker conclusion.
“I’m finding bits and thinking, ‘I’m either digging up a dead cat, a child, or a human,” Betts said as he showed several sizable bones, before pulling out what appears to be part of a jaw and appraising it. “Can anyone tell me if this is an animal? I’m hoping it’s a dog, kind of.”
Betts posted a follow-up the same day, which shows bones laid out across a table's surface. Mixed in with the remains are what appear to be remnants of wine glasses and tools.
As Betts endeavored to determine the origins of the remains, commenters weighed in with their theories. Several people noted the supposed practice of burying animals to ward off evil spirits.
“I found some bones in a house once,” Joe Small commented on the original video. “Turned out to be a sheep. Apparently, putting bones under floors was [used] to keep demons away or something like that.”
Although the claims seem outlandish, they may hold a bit of accuracy. Betts posted another video of January 7, announcing that the remains actually belonged to a pig. He compared the jaw bone he’d found to an image of a pig’s jaw bone, finding they were nearly identical. When someone asked why a person would bury a pig under their house, Betts replied alongside a shrugging emoji, “Apparently, people buried them to ward off bad spirits.”
Betts later spoke with the current owners of the home, gaining some answers but also opening up more questions. “After speaking with the owners of the home, they informed me that the house opposite used to be a pig farm and they think the barn attached to their property was in fact a slaughterhouse,” Betts wrote.
It’s unclear if the pig bones were indeed buried under the home to ward off spirits, or if they just ended up there by happenstance. There are no “mainstream” religions or belief systems that believe in burying pigs to discourage spirits, though the idea of burying dogs was popular in ancient China to ward off pestilence and bad energy.
More likely to have been popular in Cornwall in the 1800s is a figure in British folklore called a “church grim,” a spirit that protects Christian churches. In ancient legends, the first body buried at a newly opened church would guard that location against the Devil. Often, these burials would be dogs, so that humans wouldn’t have to bear the burden. But nowhere are pigs noted as an acceptable substitute.
No matter why or how the bones ended up where they did, it’s not something Betts is going to forget anytime soon. “Let’s just say it’s not every day you’re at work and find a pile of bones under a bathroom floor,” he laughed.
