recent date in Denmark, the fact that there exist but very few tombs which can with certainty be referred to it, while of those of the bronze-period there exists a very considerable number. Notwithstanding the circumstance that from this cause our knowledge of the Danish tombs of this period is extremely imperfect, it is still very evident, that between the tombs of the iron, and those of the bronze-period, some difference exists, although that difference is not so marked as that between the tombs of the stone and of the bronze-period. The external form and in some measure the internal structure of the tombs are in particular very similar, while they differ most with regard to the mode of interment, the tombs of the stone-period usually containing unburnt corpses, while those in the barrows of the bronze-period have, generally speaking, been burnt. It is true it was the custom in Sweden and Norway, in the iron-period, to consume the remains of the dead by fire, but of such a practice we find no vestiges, or at least very faint ones, in the tombs of Denmark belonging to the same period.
With reference to the mode of interment which prevailed in the North during the heathen period, the celebrated Icelandic historian Snorro Sturlesen, who wrote a chronicle of the Norwegian kings six hundred years ago[1], remarks that it was at first customary to burn the dead, and this period was termed the age of burning; but at a later period, after the interment of Frej, at Upsala, without the burning of the corpse, many chiefs buried their relatives in barrows, and hence the age of interment took its origin. In Denmark Dan Mikillati (the Splendid or the Proud) was the first who was buried without being burnt. He caused a large barrow to be con-
- ↑ The Heimskringla, or Chronicle of the kings of Norway, of which an English translation in three volumes was published by Mr. Laing in 1844. The antiquarian reader will however be pleased with a German translation by Mohnike, (Stralsund, 1837,) who unfortunately died shortly after the publication of the first volume, His notes and commentaries upon Snorro's work afford most interesting and valuable illustrations of the early history of the North.—T.
