In A Warning To The Curious M R James writes that the supernatural golden crowns belonged to three Dark Age kings who were buried in a series of tumuli (or burial mounds). I walked down a little lane leading from the church and looked over a hedge to see burial mounds in a nearby field. There was a kind of fatalistic predictability about the sight, as if everything in the story was coming true (presumably if I returned under cover of darkness and dug in the tumulus I would find the treasure and be pursued ever-afterwards by the sinister wheezing Guardian of the mounds).