Page:A book of folk-lore (1913).djvu/229

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226
A BOOK OF FOLK-LORE

mainly, but not exclusively, on the right side. Some were of females, some of mothers with their infants in their arms. No skull was discovered that indicated death through violence, and all skeletons were complete. Some of the coffins were in layers, one above another; rudely speaking, they pointed east and west, the heads being to the west; but what governed the position seemed to be the slope of the hill, that fell away somewhat steeply from the south to the north.

Some bronze fibulæ were found, finely drawn armlets of bronze wire making spiral convolutions about the wrist, a necklace of very small amber and blue glass beads strung on this bronze wire; a good deal of iron so corroded that, what with the friability and the meddlesomeness of the visitors, who would finger everything exhumed, it was not possible to make out more than that they did not represent fragments of weapons.

The fibulæ were exhibited in London by Mr. Charles H. Read, and described in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, vol. xxi., pp. 272–4. They are of the crossbow type, not British, their nearest analogues are found in the Iberian Peninsula. The pin of the brooch was perfect when found, but not so when Mr. Read saw it, and he wrongly