an upward direction. At the junction of the natural with the artificial soil, a cairn was found of closely compacted stones, each about as large as a man could lift. In the centre of the cairn the burial urn was found in the grave-chamber, containing calcined bones, ashes, fragments of bronze ornaments destroyed by fire, and a fragment of a gold ornament delicately wrought. Within the cairn, but a little away from the urn, were found a heap of dogs' bones, equally calcined by fire, and fragments of two golden bracteates. "The workmanship of the gold ornaments," Herr Hildebrand adds, "closely resembles that of the gold bracteates of the fifth or sixth centuries, and, with the fragments of these peculiar ornaments themselves, settles a date before which these mounds could not have been raised." How much later they may be, it is not easy to conjecture, without at least seeing the bracteates, which do not seem to have been published. With a little local industry, I have very little doubt, not only that the date of these tombs could be ascertained, but the names of the royal personages who were therein buried, probably in the sixth or seventh century of our era.
"The tombs of Central Sweden," Herr Hildebrand adds, "are generally constructed in the same way, the urn containing the bones being placed on the surface of the soil, at the place of cremation or elsewhere, as the case may be. Generally, nothing is found with them but an iron nail, or some such trifling object"—a curious and economical reminiscence of the extravagant customs of their predecessors. According to him, "almost every village in Sweden, with the exception of those in some mountain-districts and the most northern provinces, has a tomb-field quite close to the side of the houses. The antiquities found in the mounds of these tomb-fields all belong to the Iron age. The tombs of the earlier ages have no connection with the homesteads of the present people."
How far these tombs extend downwards in date cannot be ascertained without a much more careful examination than they have yet been subjected to. It may safely, however, be assumed that they continued to be used till the conversion of the inhabitants to Christianity, and probably even for some considerable time afterwards, for such a custom is not easily eradicated.
