of the William Greaves mentioned under the word Dayne in the glossary.
The late Mr. Hunter lamented that he was able to thrown so little light upon the early history of this district. Much remains to be done. Heaps of documents remain to be perused, and manuscripts are waiting for editors. There are barrows to be explored and other monuments of the ancient dead. To these matters it is plain that I cannot, in this place, do more than briefly refer. But are regards the evidence which language has left to us, it may not be amiss to inquire who and what were the peoples or tribes who once inhabited this border-land of Northumbria and Mercia. On this question the field-names of the district have given testimony, and the evidence which they afford will assist the inquirer in determining the factors that have entered into the composition of the dialect, to say nothing of the larger question of the racial composition of the old inhabitants themselves.
The recent discovery of an urn-burial in the parish of Sheffield has thrown an accidental light upon the early condition of this district, and I here introduce, with some modification, and with some further remarks, an article which I have elsewhere published concerning this discovery.[1]
High up on the hills at Crookes, and near to the place where Mr. Ruskin has established his small museum, the remains of a burial belonging to a period anterior to the Roman invasion have just been found. The discovery was announced in the Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, the account there given being as follows:—
On Easter Sunday [1887] Mr. Herbert T. Watkinson, of Summer Street, was walking in Cocked Hat Lane, near the Bole Hills, at Crookes, when he noticed in the side of an excavation that had been made for the foundations of some new houses what looked like a drain pipe. Closer examination revealed two rude earthenware urns, one inverted within the other, and the two containing a quantity of calcined bones, some broken fragments of a bronze spear-head or dagger, and a smaller urn pierced on one side with two round holes. The outer urn fell to pieces, but the one inverted within it was recovered whole. It is of a type very common in British burial mounds, and stands 9½ inches high, and measures across the mouth 7¼ inches, while the largest circumference is 26 inches. It is ornamented with the familiar straight and diagonal lines, and rows of dots. The urns
- ↑ Notes and Queries, 7th S. iii., p421.
