And Iden, in the second part of Henry VI., inquires,

Every ecclesiologist is familiar with such arms and accoutrements as are here mentioned. Dr J. C. Cox has enumerated churches where personal armour is still preserved[703]. No further digression can be made here, but the reader may again be reminded that many armorial relics belong to a later period, and are counterfeits which constituted part of the undertaker’s trappings (cf. p. 159 supra). One attenuated survival lasted until the middle of the nineteenth century in the form of square or lozenge-shaped hatchments (= “achievements”), made of wood. On these wooden shields, which, after the funeral, were nailed up in the church, were blazoned the coats-of-arms borne by the family of the deceased person. The most recent spectacle of this kind, surprisingly belated, was witnessed at the church of Hunmanby, in the East Riding, during the year 1897[704].

Strangest of all the warrior superstitions was that exemplified in the ceremony of offering food to weapons. The custom, which is plainly traceable to pagan ideas of worship, continued without interruption, we are assured, until the reign of Elizabeth. One instance must suffice. Sir Howel-y-Furyall, known to his fellows as “Sir Howel of the Battle-axe,” a weapon which he wielded bravely at Poitiers, ordained that his axe should be hung up in the Tower of London, and a “messe of meat” served before it daily. The injunction was obeyed, and each day, after the rite had been completed, the food was distributed to beggars[705].

Arms and food do not, however, complete our list of serviceable gifts to the dead. Among implements of this nature must be reckoned divers kinds of fire-producers. Excavations have shown that flint and iron pyrites were occasionally concealed in round barrows, while, in the mounds of later periods, a piece of iron replaced the customary mineral nodule. These ignition agents, the forerunners of our “strike-a-lights” and tinder boxes, are found so late as the Saxon period. Certain small “nests” of chipped flints occurring in Merovingian, Frankish, and Saxon sepulchres, are also believed by some authorities to have been intended for fire-kindlers[706], by means of which the departed spirit could be provided with cheerful warmth. To the present writer this theory is not entirely satisfactory, at least as regards the later developments of the practice. The cases just cited seem to be analogous to those described by Pitt-Rivers, who repeatedly found, in British barrows, urns filled with chips of flint[707]. In a notable barrow at Winkelbury Hill, on a Northern spur of the Wiltshire Downs, not only was the urn packed with flakes, but it was surrounded by a mass of similar objects[708]. Besides the flakes placed in the cist or urn itself, we have to take into account the very common occurrence of flint spalls in the body of the mound, a sight familiar to the barrow-digger. The number of chips is often out of all proportion to what might be incidentally brought together in piling up the substance of the mound from the surface soil. They were evidently struck off for the particular occasion. Now, although the germ of the ceremony may be discoverable in the burial of a trimmed flint and a lump of iron pyrites, there is no manifest virtue in the multiplication of the chips. Each tribesman may indeed have thrown in his tributary flint, or perhaps a handful of small flakes, but the intention would scarcely be to increase the opportunities of procuring fire. Rather do the chips seem to represent some esoteric doctrine, such as that which was held by the primitive Lapps. Hidden in the flint lies the spark, the emblem of life and animation, ready to burst forth. The scattered flakes of flint were therefore probably the proofs, not alone of dutiful respect, but of a strong faith that the dead man was merely asleep, that his spirit would return. Pliny’s Natural History has been credited with the statement that Northern peoples used to throw flint chippings into graves in order to confine the dead within those dark dominions. Pliny does, indeed, describe certain stones that consume dead bodies, and other kinds that have the power to preserve the corpse, and to turn it into stone[709]. But the reference to the flint flakes, as commonly given, is bibliographically incorrect, and, although the passage may exist, I have not been successful in finding it. Except for the sake of the reason assigned to the custom, the passage is unimportant, since we possess actual relics as a testimony of the practice. What is of more interest is the fact that we have a reference to the custom as apparently existing in Shakespeare’s day. When Ophelia is about to be buried, the surly priest makes complaint:

From this passage it seems clear that a ceremony, which, if I interpret it aright, was originally indicative of respect, had degenerated into a mark of disgrace. The potsherds and flint chips were known to be a mark of heathen burial, and were therefore reprobated by Christians, without any inquiry as to their purport. There is an alternative explanation: the idea of laying the evil spirit, so that it should not wander abroad and annoy the living, may at some time have been operative. If this assumption be well founded, it might be urged that the priest had caught an echo of the superstition, and actually believed that the ghost of a suicide might return. The usual annotation of the lines, to the effect that Ophelia is worthy only of pagan burial, comes a little short of the whole truth, and one of these ideas—respect or fear—is required to round off the meaning. In support of this view, the case of the Czechs is apposite. When returning from a funeral, it is the custom of this folk to throw stones, mud, and hot coals in the direction of the grave to deter the spirit from following the burial party[711]. Again, the purpose of wearing mourning is believed to have arisen from attempts to disguise the person, so that pursuit by the dead may be evaded; or, as Mr E. S. Hartland contends, the intention was to express sorrow and abasement, so as to deprecate the malice of the disembodied spirit[712]. Yet, in spite of these by-theories, one is led to believe that the earlier intention of the funeral flints was to express honour and respect, though the feeling may have been tinged with wholesome fear. To this extent the theory of ancestor-worship, as opposed to that of animism, receives some confirmation.

A passage occurring in Herodotus has been noted as throwing some light on the custom, while not affording an actual explanation. The writer is describing the ceremony of purification observed after funerals by the Scythians in Europe. A cavity was made, or a dish was placed in the middle of a specially constructed tent. Into this hollow they threw stones heated to a transparent brightness (λίθους ἐκ πυρὸς διαφανέας ἐσβάλλουσι ἐς σκάφην)[713]. This description, however, does not really apply to the rite which we are considering, for Herodotus goes on to say that hemp-seed is put on the red-hot stones. The intention was to prepare a kind of vapour bath, and also probably to induce intoxication[714]. In other words, the heated stones seem to have been our familiar “pot-boilers,” common on all prehistoric camping-grounds, and capable of a purely industrial explanation, though often applied to a ceremonial purpose.

Returning to the shards alluded to by the priest at Ophelia’s grave, we note, as an illustration, that Pitt-Rivers found considerable quantities of broken pottery in the Romano-British graves of Dorset and Wiltshire. A remarkable coincidence must now be mentioned. Douglas, writing his Nenia Britannica in 1793, had noticed that pebbles and fragments of pottery were often mixed with the earth which had been scattered over the corpses in Saxon graves. The shards were generally of more ancient date than the interment[715]. Douglas had lighted upon the passage in Hamlet, already quoted, and had connected it with the superstitious Saxon practice. Over half a century later, Mr W. M. Wylie, who was exploring Saxon graves at Fairford, in Gloucestershire, came upon quantities of similar burial shards. The vessels which had furnished the fragments had not been newly broken for the occasion, since the pieces did not correspond, but had been previously collected and kept in readiness. Along with these potsherds were found pebbles that had been fired, as well as scoriae from iron smeltings, obtained perhaps from the neighbourhood of Cirencester, not far away[716]. After referring to the description of the Scythian custom, which has just been quoted from Herodotus, and after making a half-hearted attempt to connect the Scythians with the Northern Teutons, Wylie cites the now-famous lines from Hamlet. That Wylie should have independently come to the same conclusion as Douglas, and should have called attention to the same Shakespearean allusion, is very noteworthy, for he had never read Douglas’s work[717].

Although we are considering relics which were judged to be of use to the dead, we have transgressed our limits, and have been compelled to glance at the ceremonial aspect. Yet before we can safely return to the main inquiry, we must notice some instances of survival in this matter of potsherds. Numerous records tend to show that the deposition of pieces of earthenware in Christian graves was not an uncommon practice during the Middle Ages. At once, however, we must make a reservation: the scraps of pottery may, to some extent, represent vessels in which charcoal had been deposited, but which afterwards were fractured by the sexton’s spade. For the broken pottery is sometimes, but not always, associated with charcoal, while, as we shall see, the charcoal is often found alone. The Rev. R. Ashington Bullen found traces of the custom at Little Stukeley, Huntingdonshire. At a depth of 4½ feet, graves were found to contain fragments of Mediaeval pottery, possessing a greenish glaze, but no charcoal was discovered[718]. Canon Atkinson states that potsherds were also found near Dunsley chapel, Yorkshire, which was probably demolished prior to the Dissolution of the Monasteries. This capable antiquary, whose eye was well trained for the work, observed charcoal and broken crocks in abundance in the old churchyard graves of Danby-in-Cleveland. The charcoal occurred in lumps of the size of a small bean. Occasionally, out of half a spade-graft of mould brought to the surface, from one-third to one-half would be principally charcoal. Fragments of coarse red pottery, partly glazed on the interior surface, and without doubt of Mediaeval age, were also constantly lighted upon. About a wheelbarrow full of shards was turned up within a quarter of a century, few graves being dug without some scraps being encountered. The charcoal and the pottery were not actually found in contact, nevertheless Canon Atkinson believed that charcoal, in the form of live coals [Qy live charcoal, i.e. “coal” in the older sense?] had been placed in earthen vessels. The reason for this opinion is not given, nor does the hypothesis harmonize with all the related facts. Canon Atkinson, while granting that the idea of purificatory energy may have underlain the custom, stated that collateral evidences showed a desire to keep the spirit in abeyance[719]. These opinions have been dealt with in advance; it remains to be noted that Danby churchyard seems once to have formed part of an open field. “That pagan Danes were laid to their rest there I make no doubt; and that they were the fore-elders of a Christianized generation or series of generations is equally certain[720].” These details, though interesting, are unimportant; the essential matter is that the bulk of the pottery was of Mediaeval date—the narrator allows for exceptions—and must therefore have been employed in Christian times (see p. 287 supra). The practice had possibly a direct lineal descent from the Bronze Age. In one barrow belonging to that period, a deposit of burnt bones was underlain by wood, and was covered with charcoal and wood ashes, probably the remains of the funeral pile[721]. On the other hand, a barrow which was opened by Canon Atkinson contained pieces of charcoal, varying in size from a bean to a nutmeg, scattered through the material of the mound[722]. Other cases might be given from the investigations of Pitt-Rivers. Late Frankish cemeteries have yielded fragments of charcoal[723], and the same may be said of Mediaeval graves in France[724]. The accidentals of cremation ceremonies clearly survived the essentials, and a pagan custom was engrafted on Christian rite. The Mediaeval churchman’s explanation of the charcoal is thus given by Durandus: Carbones in testimonium, quod terra illa ad communes usus amplius redigi non potest, plus enim durat carbo sub terra quam aliud[725]; that is: Charcoal is employed to show that the earth can no longer be put to ordinary uses, because charcoal endures underground longer than any other substance.

Is there any known instance of the actual use of flint flakes at Christian funerals? Research has so far given a negative reply, but a scrap or two of evidence may be produced. Canon Atkinson found flint chippings and even the ruder kinds of implements in the churchyards of Cleveland[726]. The present writer picked up a flint flake from a newly-dug grave at Northolt, Middlesex, and another, a long, thin specimen, with a “back ridge,” at Warlingham churchyard, Surrey. The risks of drawing an inference from such isolated occurrences as these are both numerous and patent. The churchyard was once part of the open country, and these flakes might, perhaps, originally have been derived from the surface soil. Again, chips of a rough kind fall as waste when flint is dressed and squared for church walls. A sufficient knowledge of the properties of modern and ancient flakes enables the observer to dismiss this source of error, though it must be stated that both at Warlingham and Northolt flint forms a portion of the structural materials. Now the two flakes described were not whitened by exposure and dissolution of the colloidal portion of the silica. They had retained their old unpatinated surface, save that a polish had been acquired; one may therefore conclude that they had lain for a considerable period in a close impervious clay or loam. Probably they had been dug from a depth of two or three feet below the surface. The specimens were certainly ancient. Should instances of this nature be recorded with a fair degree of frequency, the meaning might be deciphered in either of two ways: the adaptation of a pagan site for a Christian place of worship, or the casting of flint chips into a Christian grave. Whether the occurrence of quantities of ancient splinters of flint near a churchyard, as at St Paul’s Cray, Kent, must be interpreted in the same manner, is not so clear. I prefer to await further records, which are, from the nature of the case, difficult to procure. The flints are mysterious witnesses, at most, and the sceptic may justly scorn their testimony, if asked to consider these objects alone. But the triad of flints, potsherds, and charcoal, stands moderately firm. Concerning the charcoal, we have fortunately, apart from the relics, the words of Durandus to help us to read the ostensible meaning. But assume that we were unaware of the Mediaeval character of some of the graveyard pottery, who would believe that the custom of interring potsherds was observed at so late a period? The sceptic would say that the scraps represented prehistoric urns accidentally occurring in the churchyard soil. We should be justified in refusing our assent at the outset, but we should have to reconsider the matter when we found that the habit of breaking vessels and utensils over the dead is common among many races[727]. Moreover, there is a record, within the last thirty years, of a Lincolnshire woman’s breaking pottery over her husband’s grave, because she had forgotten to inter the perfect vessels with the body. At present, then, we must allow that there is a possible preliminary case in favour of the flints, if these should be now and again detected.

Let us summarize the last few paragraphs. The original purpose of placing apparently useless potsherds with the dead was to provide the departed tribesman with the spiritual utensils thus represented, the spirit-forms having been liberated by the breaking of the vessels. Similarly, the charcoal, the calcined pebbles or “pot-boilers,” and the few scraps of flint, would supply him with fire, first material, afterwards spiritual. Thus he had the means of making a fire, and of carrying water and hot embers. “Poor indeed,” says Professor T. Rupert Jones, “was the greatest of the heroes, on his dreary death-path, who had not ‘a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit’ (Isa. xxx. 14)[728].” So far, the theory agrees well with the explanation given respecting votive implements and weapons. Moreover, we can see how the idea of “laying the spirit” with hot stones and fractured flints may have arisen. The homeless ghost would be happy only when fealty had been proved by funeral gifts. Careless or daring folk who neglected to pay the tribute would, in dreams, receive visits from the disembodied dead. Where no affection or respect existed, experience might teach that formal adherence to custom was prudent. The explanation based on actual needs seems only to suffice for those cases where the flint and earthenware gifts are solitary, or at any rate, few, like the celts and arrow-heads. Wherever the flint flakes are counted by scores, and the potsherds, broken, it may be, from vessels made expressly for the sepulchre, are representative of many individual pieces of pottery, the idea involved seems to be, not mere utility, but dutiful respect, tempered, as some will have it, with fear.

It may be submitted that, just as the Bedouin Arabs are wont to set up groups of stones around the burial-place of a fakir, so the chief members of a prehistoric tribe, each carrying his portion, produced the accumulation of flint spalls. True; but this does not support the suggested explanation that the flakes were strike-a-lights. So soon as the multiplication of fire-kindlers—if we assume that the flakes were at first of this nature—reached to the extent of filling an urn or cist, utility must have been the waning, and reverence the waxing principle. The idea that material objects could benefit the dead lingered, it is true, for ages, and in some half-hearted manner persisted, as we shall see, until our own day, but it was ultimately overpowered by the growth of symbolical rites. It remains to notice Pitt-Rivers’ theory that the broken pottery may have been buried to mark the site of a barrow, but how this mode of indication could be effective that cautious and experienced investigator does not suggest. In a boundary tumulus, entombed pottery might be significant, but even there, it could not form a visible memorial.

Reverting for a moment to the subject of fire-kindlers, I would remark that many of the objects known to archaeologists as flint “scrapers” were probably ignition agents[729]. Consequently, to call such flints “thumb-scrapers,” or oval scrapers, as is often done by the barrow-digger, is to push aside a debateable question by means of an assumption. Scrapers they may have been, but it is at least permissible to believe that they were also fire-producers. In due time, the strike-a-light became a specialized article, but both scraper and fire-kindler continued to find a place in the grave. Pliny speaks of the discovery of mirrors and “body-scrapers” (specula quoque, et strigiles)[730], in ancient tombs. These strigils, which Philemon Holland quaintly renders “currycombes[731],” and Littré, as instruments pour les oreilles[732], were actually, in Roman days, the scrapers of horn or metal, used by the bather to remove impurities from the skin. Thus, considered as a scraper, the strigil reaches back to the rounded flint with trimmed edges, and forward to the Mediaeval “sleeker” of stone or metal, employed by the currier in tawing hides. As a “slick-stone” of black glass, degraded, doubtless, to the ornamental stage, the object again appears in Islay, associated with a burial of the Viking period[733]. Later records of the scraper, and of the strike-a-light, definitely illustrative of the theory of funeral gifts, seem to be lacking.

A survival of the custom of furnishing the dead with fire-kindlers is partially traceable in the ancient practice of depositing a candle in the grave, to light the dead man on his way. In Ireland a hammer was also interred, to enable the deceased person to knock at the gates of Purgatory, while a sixpenny piece secured admission[734]. Within the last generation a native of Cleveland was buried with a candle for the purpose of obtaining light, a bottle of wine for nourishment, and a penny to pay the ferryman[735]. The village of Bucklebury, Berkshire, by the way, supplies an instance of a different kind; in a grave apparently modern, two bottles of beer had been placed but no candle[736]! In Lincolnshire a groat, “a mug and a jug,” were placed in the coffin. The Lincolnshire widow, who had forgotten to deposit the mug and the jug in the grave, broke the crockery, as we have seen (p. 292 supra), and laid the fragments on the mound. In one case, where a bottle, full of pins, was found in a recently opened grave, the explanation can probably be found in sympathetic magic. The pins had been used to touch warts on the skin, and the operative belief was either that the warts were transferred to the dead person, or that, as the pins rusted, the warts would die away. The former explanation is the more likely, else the pins might as well have been buried anywhere. Mr England Howlett asserts that the burial of a candle in the coffin was once common. He throws doubt on the theory of the provision of light for the dead, and claims that the candle was emblematic of an extinguished life. Support for this new theory is sought in the custom of immuring candles in the foundation of churches and houses, of which, Mr Howlett says, many examples are known[737]. Owing to the amount of correlative evidence bearing on the question of fire-kindlers and fire-worship, I prefer to regard the candle as representing the attenuated symbolism of light and heat.

Even while referring to candles, we have been forced to observe another burial-gift—the coin placed in the hand or mouth. Since the coin had originally a supposed useful purpose, a few words may be devoted to it. The practice is at least as old as the time of the ancient Greeks, who were accustomed to place an obolus in the dead person’s mouth. To a classic origin, however, in the ordinary sense of the term, the custom cannot be limited. It prevailed in pagan Germany[738], and in Christian England. Professor Tylor cites examples from several countries, and gives a list of authorities. De Groot states that the silver coin deposited in the mouth of the corpse by the Chinese has replaced the earlier cowrie, just as it has superseded the cowrie for purposes of currency[739]. The custom of coin-burial was well known to the Romano-Britons, as is proved by the excavations of General Pitt-Rivers in Cranborne Chase. We are compelled, therefore, to postulate a more extended history than Greece or Rome would afford. Even in England the belief must have been profound, even touching, in its sincerity. Silver coins are occasionally dug up in English churchyards, and the tradition runs that such money had originally been placed in the mouth of the corpse[740]. Evidence of this kind prevents a too confident acceptance of Mr Romilly Allen’s conclusion that the idea of Charon’s penny ceased with the introduction of Christianity[741]. The spirit, if not the precise tradition, of the ancient custom long survived with some intensity. Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff relates how an old Burgundian woman, being asked why she had placed a sou in the hand of a dead child, replied, C’est pour payer le trajet à Charon. The narrator supposes, with fair reason, that this incident revealed the lasting influence of Roman civilization over the Gaulish people[742]. The woman may have heard, or read, the classic tradition, but this is rather improbable. Folk-memory had seemingly retained the orthodox explanation, but the custom itself may go back to the time when the newly invented coin replaced some cruder amulet. From what centre, or centres, the belief in the virtue of the coin was transmitted, is at present unknown.

An illustration drawn from the writings of Mr Thomas Hardy will doubtless be pardoned, since much genuine Wessex folklore has been presented to us in the garb of fiction by that shrewd observer and archaeologist. In The Mayor of Casterbridge [i.e. Dorchester], after having been told of the death of Mrs Henchard, the reader is treated to a rustic gossip on death in general. Mrs Cuxsom gives her own little commentary, and then proceeds to quote the words of her dead neighbour: “And there’s four ounce pennies, the heaviest I could find, a-tied up in bits of linen, for weights—two for my right eye, and two for my left. And when you’ve used ’em, and my eyes don’t open no more, bury the pennies, good souls, and don’t ye go spending ’em, for I shouldn’t like it.” In the sequel, a servant buries the coins in the garden, but Christopher Coney digs them up and spends them. One of the listeners, Solomon Longways, excuses this action, and can see “no treason in it,” but the general verdict ran: “’Twas a cannibal deed[743].”

Now we may be certain that this conversation describes, in all essential details, the Wessex superstition. Within our own times, Northumbrian folk were wont to bury a penny piece just under the soil of a newly-made grave. And it is a very common belief that misfortune will follow him who desecrates the coin—the ferryman’s penny—by ignoble use. If, as is probable, the “eye-coin” be the genuine representative of this penny, it has degenerated into a humble accessory of the death-chamber; it is not now even deposited in the grave. Nevertheless, the segregated coin must not be put again to everyday uses. Well did Jowett of Balliol in luminous phrase speak of “underground religion,” that strain of superstition which cannot be banished from the peasant mind. Nor, indeed, does orthodoxy, at least as understood by provincial or unthinking folk, raise any serious demur to the observance.

We cannot accept as adequate the superficial explanation that the penny is simply used to close the eyes. This is the immediate purpose, of course, but it does not explain why a penny, though certainly an object of convenient size and shape, should alone be used. Least of all does it account for the placing of coins in the mouth, or of burying money in the grave. Norwegian folk-lore supplies us with a curious correlative. When the Norwegian peasant takes earth from the churchyard to succour ailing children, he must bury silver coins in place of the stolen specific. Customs like these carry us back, by almost imperceptible transitions, to the building of the British barrow, and to the interment therein of flawless arrow-head or fractured celt. Following the centuries forward, we may dimly surmise why the various changes took place; glancing back, we marvel that the beliefs have been clung to so tenaciously.

We must now leave our first group of objects—the axes, the knives, the arrow-tips, with fire-kindlers, pottery, querns, spindle-whorls, and all similar appliances, in order to give some attention to the next division of the relics. This class, it will be remembered, comprises amulets, talismans, and symbolical objects. Some difficulty arises when we try to separate these from the purely decorative articles, but there are certain relics whose purpose does not seem to admit of doubt. The tiny polished celts, of which an example from Puy de Dôme is shown in Fig. 57, must have been charms. Specimens much smaller than the one illustrated are often met with. Still more convincing are the small amber axes which Professor Montelius has described as occurring in Scandinavia: these cannot have had any economical use.

Examples of objects wholly symbolical or protective are furnished by the white or transparent pebbles frequently found in ancient graves. In the innermost chamber of a Scottish cairn opened by Dr Angus Smith, at Achnacree, near Loch Etive, a row of quartz pebbles, each larger than a walnut, was seen displayed on a granite ledge. Canon Greenwell, who examined cairns containing similar objects near Crinan, thought that the stones had a symbolical meaning[744]. Similarly, Mr Reddie Mallett discovered shield-shaped masses of quartz deposited in the Celtic Cemetery at Harlyn Bay, Cornwall[745]. Smooth white pebbles, sometimes five or seven in number, but never more, and usually arranged in crosses, were found in graves under the fallen ramparts of Burghead, in Elginshire[746]. The belief in the virtues of selected pebbles was of an enduring kind, for crystals of quartz and white stones (“Godstones”) were commonly placed in Irish graves within recent times. In ancient Irish graves the finding of such objects is of common occurrence. Pebbles of other hues have also been discovered, representing a small colour-series[747]. The fisher-folk of Inverary have a practice, which outruns all memory, and which is independent of everything save tradition, of placing little white pebbles on the graves of their friends[748]. More might be said concerning these white stones—the symbols of justification in the Apocalypse[749], the sacred comforters of the dying Hindoo, the counters by means of which the ancient Thracians recorded their happy days[750]. We will, however, pass to a more elaborate kind of amulet, the crystal ball which is often found in Saxon graves. Sometimes the crystal is mounted with a silver band or ring, as if its owner had carried it in suspension. From a consideration of the passage in Beowulf respecting the value of such amulets in protecting the head from the blows of the enemy, from a knowledge that crystal pendants have, until modern times, been deemed efficacious in stanching the flow of blood, and from a study of parallel beliefs and divinations existing among various races, we conclude that these objects were prized as talismans. It is noticeable that Mr Roach Smith did not accept this interpretation, and regarded the balls simply as objects of which the use was less obvious than that of the ordinary funeral relic[751].

Whether we ought to consider the amber beads of British barrows as charms, or, like their fellows of glass and clay, as ornaments solely, is a moot point. The abundance of the beads increases when we reach the Saxon period. Perhaps, where they are numerous, they formed part of a necklace (Fig. 58). In more than one instance an amber bead was found attached to, or lying near, a skeleton. I am inclined to put the amber beads in a special class because of the virtues formerly assigned to this substance. Amber shielded the living from evil, and it sped the departed on their long journey. Decoration, therefore, was not the sole reason for the selection. Elton quotes an ancient Welsh poem, in which is described, with “Homeric minuteness,” the amber ornaments of the British chief Gododin:

The amber dug out of British barrows is usually of the red variety, not blackish or honey-coloured. Much archaeological warfare has been waged as to its place of origin. Along the East coast of Britain, from Ramsgate to Aberdeen, specimens are frequently picked up, generally of a yellowish tint. A native source, however, is not perhaps to be assigned to most of the amber beads. From their great abundance in Saxon tumuli, Elton favoured the hypothesis that the main supply came from over the North Sea[753].

The supposition that amber beads were credited with occult virtues is strengthened by folk-lore. Such beads were popularly believed to render the wearer proof against witchcraft. St Eloi forbade women to wear these objects around the neck[754]. Zest is added to our inquiry by the superstition about the “lammerbeads” (Scotch, lammer = amber; cf. Fr. l’ambre), of Tweedside, which, on being dug out of ancient barrows, were worn as charms for the cure of weak eyes and sprained limbs, and were ultimately handed down as cherished heirlooms[755].

Among the other articles which seem to have been prized for magical or protective properties may be mentioned wolves’ teeth and boars’ tusks, perforated for suspension as charms[756]. Mention, too, must be made of a naturally perforated flint to which a fossil echinoderm (Micraster) was attached, found by Mr E. Lovett on the breast of a skeleton in a barrow on the Sussex Downs[757]. This last example leads us imperceptibly to our third group of funeral relics, wherein fossils occupy an important position. This third class includes articles primarily of an ornamental or decorative character. Reviewing the fossils first, we notice that primitive man had learned at an early period to collect and store up the flint echinoderms left among the residual drift of the surface over which he daily trod. We may pass by, with but a hasty glance, the fossil “sea-urchins” dug up in great numbers by Pitt-Rivers in the Romano-British villages at Rotherly (Wilts.) and Woodcuts (Dorset), since these echinoderms are believed to have served purely secular purposes, such as those of coinage[758]. In like manner the ammonites, pierced for spindle-whorls, unearthed at the Glastonbury lake-village, may be dismissed as not being graveyard specimens.

The most famous instance of the occurrence of echinoderms in burial-mounds is that recorded by Mr Worthington G. Smith from a round barrow on Dunstable Downs. The description of this discovery, which is not without pathos, is worthy of even greater renown than it has yet achieved. The barrow, on being opened, revealed the skeleton of a woman, clasping the almost perished relics of a child. One is tempted here to compare the later superstitious practice of burying an unbaptized child at the feet of an adult, to prevent the child-spirit from wandering around its former home. It has been suggested that the child may have been buried alive with its mother. Be this disquieting thought well based or not, the objects associated with the burial were of a striking nature. Besides celts and scrapers of flint, the excavators found a dozen fossil echinoderms. On extending the diggings, nearly 100 more specimens came to light, and after repeatedly shovelling and raking the soil which formed the tumulus, still more, to the number of over 200, were added to the spoils. Mr Smith, who was unfortunately not present at the first opening of the mound, concluded that the fossils had formed a border around the bodies. In his fascinating volume, Man the Primeval Savage, he has given us an interesting illustration of the grave as it was probably arranged before the mound was piled over it (Fig. 59). The fossils were of two species: the “Heart urchin” (Micraster cor-anguinum) and the “Fairy loaf” (Echinocorys ovatus, Leske = Ananchytes scutatus)[759]. A belief became somewhat generally current among archaeologists that these “urchins” had been directly obtained from the chalk. If that had been the case, the fossils would have been composed of unabraded flint, with a whitened surface, or the “tests” or outer coverings would have been of calcite, with an amorphous interior filling of chalk. But this opinion, confidently and frequently repeated, seemed to credit the Bronze Age man with much too great a familiarity with chalk fossils. It appeared strange that he should have extracted the fossils from the parent chalk by the aid of a deerhorn pick or a celt of flint or bronze. The presumption was more likely that the specimens were silicified “casts” which had been dissolved out of the chalk mass ages previously, and which, lying on, or near the surface, when the primitive settler tilled the downs for a livelihood, met with the approval of his keen eye. Accordingly, I wrote to Mr Smith, who, in a letter dated 3 May, 1909, stated that this supposition was correct—the fossils were of flint, and had been washed out of the Clay-with-Flints. In other words, they had not been derived immediately from the parent chalk.

It may be appositely remarked in this place that the fame of fossil echinoderms is well attested by the folk-name “Fairy loaf,” already given, not to speak of such genuine popular terms as “Shepherd’s crown” or “Shepherd’s helmet” (Echinocorys), and “Sugar loaf” (Conulus = Echincconus = Galerites). Concerning the Fairy loaf, the legend runs that whoso will keep a specimen in his house shall never lack bread.