Page:A book of folk-lore (1913).djvu/150

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THE MYSTERY OF DEATH
147

inland into the desert and there buried, under a cairn of stones; and I have seen and sketched that same cairn.

This is not a solitary instance. Several others are related to the same effect. Corpses were left in their graves to sleep in peace, but if they became troublesome they were incinerated. What took place in Iceland on a small scale took place on a large one among the dolmen builders, and for the same reason. We have seen the same system adopted in the case of the vampires in Servia so late as 1732.

Popular superstition now oscillated between the two conceptions of death. We have seen a Devonshire farmer entertain precisely the same notions relative to a corpse that are found among savages almost at the bottom of the cultural ladder. But undoubtedly the legacy from the age of incineration, the idea of the spirit detached from and independent of the body manifesting itself, is the most prevalent.

There was a woman in Horbury Bridge, near Wakefield, who kept a little shop. We had many a long walk together, and she told me two stories of her experiences that show that the two independent conceptions relative to death were in her mind.