sils and other objects of the olden time, distinguish three epochs, which they term respectively the Stone, Bronze, and Iron age. Stone weapons were no doubt the first in use, and were probably replaced by bronze, and these again by weapons of iron and steel; so that, in this respect, the classification appears to be well founded. Whether it be applicable or not to distinguish the relative age of barrows is another question, which we should be inclined to answer in the negative. We are told, for instance, that the barrows with stone vaults in which the dead were deposited without burning, belong to the Stone Age, because the objects found in those that have been opened are generally of stone, and very seldom of metal; at most only a few bronze or gold ornaments, and never any thing of silver, having been discovered. It is further assumed that in the next, or Bronze Age, burning on funeral piles prevailed, the weapons found in cinerary chests in the mounds and barrows containing them being generally of bronze, and the other objects either of bronze, gold, or amber, and never of silver. The barrows with wooden mortuary chambers, are placed by the learned antiquaries in the Iron Age, when they suppose that burial again prevailed, although burning on funeral piles continued to be practised. The opening of a dozen barrows would probably upset this specious theory, which, as it seems to be founded on the fictions of the Ynglinga-Saga, we can place no confidence in, even admitting that the statements respecting the objects found in the different kinds of barrows were quite unobjectionable, which however is far from being the case. The learned Skulius Thorlacius was of opinion that the stone weapons found in barrows were mere simulacra armorum, meant to typify the power of Thor over the elves and spirits of darkness, and protect the dead from their machinations †. Thor killed his demoniacal adversaries by launching his mallet at them; that is to say, an evil principle, typified under the form of a giant, was destroyed by the lightning of heaven. Now, according to Thorlacius, the cuneiform stone axe was See a work entitled "Leitfaden zur Nordischen Alterthumskunde," published-so at least it is stated in the title page, otherwise we should have doubted the fact-by the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries. Om Thor og hans Hammer. Skand. Mus. 1802. Nos. 3 and 4. emblematic of the splitting, the arrow head of the piercing, and the malleiform axe of the shattering force of the thunderbolt hurled by the renowned Scandinavian deity, and these are the stone weapons generally found in barrows. Whether this hypothesis of the learned Dane be well founded or not, we will not pretend to decide; it is at all events sufficiently ingenious to make us hesitate in assuming that a barrow in which only stone weapons are found must necessarily have been raised at a period when bronze and iron were unknown, or not in general usage. William Grimm, in the supplement to his work on German runes, in which he cites this hypothesis of Thorlacius, has given some very interesting statements respecting the barrows of the ancient Germans. In a barrow near Maden in Hesse-Cassel *, three cinerary urns were found, and also three skeletons lying with the face to the ground. A barrow at Eichstätt contained three skeletons, the middle one lying with the face upwards and turned towards the east, the two others with the face downwards and turned to the south. In one of the Braunfels barrows a single skeleton was found; in another, a skeleton and an urn filled with incinerated human bones. On one side of the mortuary chamber of a barrow near Warnstadt, in Saxony, was found an urn containing the burnt bones of a child, on the opposite side lay a mouldering skeleton, and in the middle a perfect skeleton of a man with a spear. Grimm supposes that a skeleton found lying with the face downwards must be that of a slave; and, admitting this to be the case, we should be justified in concluding from the facts stated, that the Maden barrow was raised at a period when the Germans burnt the body of the master and buried that of the slave, and the Eichstätt barrow when it was the custom to bury both slave and freeman; care, however, being taken to indicate by the position in which the bodies were laid that death itself did not put an end to servitude. If the errors into which the northern antiquaries have fallen did not warn us to be exceedingly cautious in drawing conclusions from vague assumptions and dubious facts, we might, perhaps, infer from the respective positions of these skeletons, that our Teutonic forefathers were of opinion that the soul of a slave *The ancient inhabitants of Hesse Cassel were the Chatti, a tribe belorging to the upper Germanic branch of the Teutonic race. would descend to the abodes of darkness, while that of his master soared to the regions of ethereal light and everlasting bliss. Be this as it may, we may safely conclude that burning and burying the dead were contemporaneous usages, both cinerary ́urns and skeletons, face upwards, having been found in barrows near Wisbaden, in others, near Darnburg in the Duchy of Weimar, as well as in several barrows raised by the ancient Slavonic inhabitants of Pomerania. Barrow burial, or barrowing—if the term be admissible · -was practised not only by the Scandinavians and Germans, but also by several Slavonic and Celtic tribes, as well as by the ancient Greeks and Etruscans, and may probably have originally been founded on some religious dogma, held at a very remote period by the common ancestors of all these nations. From the eastern shores of the Black Sea we may follow lines of barrows in a northeasterly direction through the steppes of Tartary to the wilds of Siberia, and in a north-westerly course through Russia and northern Germany, to Scandinavia and the British Islands. It is somewhat singular that although there are a considerable number of barrows in Silesia, Saxony, Prussia, and the whole of northern Germany, none are to be seen, with the exception of those near Eichstätt, in Austria, Bavaria, Wurtemberg and Baden *. In Iceland and Norway there are very few of these rude monuments; Denmark has a considerable number of them, but in no country are they so abundant as in Sweden.] When a hero or chief fell gloriously in battle, his funeral obsequies were honoured with all possible magnificence. His arms, his gold and silver, his war-horse, and whatever else he held most dear, were placed with him on the pile. His dependants and friends frequently made it a point of honour to die with their leader, in order to attend on his shade in the palace of Odin. Nothing, in fact, seemed to them more grand and noble than to enter Valhalla with a numerous retinue, all in their finest armour and richest apparel. The princes and nobles never failed of such attendants. His arms, and the bones of the horse on which Chilperic I. supposed he should be presented to this warrior god, have been found in his tomb. They did • See Grimm Über deutsche Runen, p. 265. in reality firmly believe, and Odin himself had assured them, that whatever was buried or consumed with the dead, accompanied them to his palace. The poorer people, from the same persuasion, carried at least their most necessary utensils and a little money, not to be entirely destitute in the other world. From a like motive, the Greeks and Romans put a piece of silver into the dead man's mouth, to pay his passage over the Styx. The Laplanders to this day provide their dead with a flint and every thing necessary for lighting them along the dark passage they have to traverse after death. In whatever degree civilized nations resemble the savage part of mankind, their strongest features are those which respect religion, death, and a future state. Men cannot contemplate these interesting objects coolly, nor uninfluenced by such hopes and fears as shackle and impede the proper exertion of their reasoning faculties. Accordingly all that the theology of the Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans, those people in other respects so wise, taught them on many points, was only one great delirium, and was (if we consider it impartially) in no respect superior to that of the ancient Scandinavians; if indeed it was not more indecent and extravagant still than theirs. Odin was supposed to guard these rich deposits from the sacrilegious attempts of rapine by means of certain sacred and wandering fires which played round the tombs. And for their better security the law promulged its severest edicts against all offences of this kind. The nineteenth chapter of the Salic law is full of the different punishments decreed against such as shall carry off the boards or carpeting with which the sepulchres were covered; and interdicts them from fire and water. This law appears to have been well observed in the north during the times of paganism, since, in digging into old burial grounds, there are now frequently found arms, spurs, rings, and different kinds of vases. Such were the contents of the tomb that was opened near Guben in Germany. The person who had been interred there seems to have been a lover of good cheer; for he had carried with him several utensils of cookery, together with flagons and drinking vessels of all sizes. In the British isles, in Germany, in Scandinavia, and in many countries in the northern and eastern parts of Asia, are found monuments of the ancient inhabitants, in the form of little round hills and often surrounded with stones, on open plains or near some road. It is the received opinion that these are the burying places of giants, and indeed bones larger than the human size are often found in them; but we must remember that as the ancients durst not approach the palace of Odin on foot, and for that reason had their horses buried with them, it is very probable that the bones of these animals are often mistaken for those of men. CHAPTER XI. SEQUEL OF THE CUSTOMS, ARTS AND SCIENCES OF THE ANCIENT SCANDINAVIANS. THE arts, which are necessary to the convenience of life, are but indifferently cultivated among a people who neglect the more pleasing and refined ones. The Scandinavians held them all equally in contempt: what little attention they bestowed on any, was chiefly on such as were subservient to their darling passion. This contempt for the arts, which men's desire of justifying their own sloth inspires, received additional strength from their sanguinary religion, from their extravagant fondness for liberty, which could not brook a long confinement in the same place, and especially from their rough, fiery, and quarrelsome temper, which taught them to place all the happiness and glory of man in being able to brave his equals and to repel insults. 66 As long as this inclination had its full sway among a people who were perpetually migrating from one forest to another, and entirely maintained from the produce of their flocks and herds, they never thought of cultivating the soil. In the time of Tacitus, the Germans were little used to agriculture. They cultivate," says that historian, "sometimes one part of the country, and sometimes another; and then make a new division of the lands. They will much easier be persuaded to attack and reap wounds from an enemy, than to till the ground and wait the produce. They consider it as an indication of effeminacy and want of courage to gain by the sweat of their brow, what they may acquire at the price of |