The importance of critical illustrations of this nature, acquired by means of barrows, is not confined to the circumstance that certain unfounded traditions, which have partly been collected in later times, are by this means destroyed and banished from history. We learn beside, which is of equal importance, that such traditions can only be received with the greatest caution, even when they relate to particular spots and barrows, and when the reference dates some hundred years back, unless peculiar circumstances confirm the date and authority.
V. Runic Stones.
Antiquarian remains and barrows would convey much more trustworthy information of the past if they were in all cases furnished with inscriptions. From the languages in which such inscriptions were composed, we should then be able to form conclusions as to the descent and connection of the earliest inhabitants of the North; since, it is sufficiently clear that men who belong to the same stock, speak languages which are, at all events, allied to each other. But unfortunately inscriptions of ancient date are extremely rare. In the stone-period, writing, with the exception perhaps of single hieroglyphic signs and representations, appears to have been completely unknown. Of the bronze-period no distinct traces of inscriptions appear to have been discovered; and it is only in that of iron, that inscriptions occur which are inscribed in the so termed Runes, or Runic letters. The usual alphabet, which consists of sixteen characters, is as follows:
There are, however, deviations from the above, and several varieties of the characters themselves ; beside which there are other various kinds of foreign Runes still more different, such
