mostly in natural beds of sand, and with them many beautiful and costly ornaments. The Viking was buried in his ship; and the hero was often accompanied in the grave by his weapons, and his favourite horse. The remains belonging to this period are incomparably more numerous in Norway and Sweden, than in Denmark.
This division of the ancient times in Denmark into three periods is solely and entirely founded on the accordant testimony of antiquities and barrows, for the ancient traditions do not mention that there ever was a time here, when, for want of iron, weapons and edged-tools were made of bronze. On this account, many maintain that no importance, or credibility, can be attached to this division into three eras, since the objects supposed to belong to such three periods may have proceeded from the same period, but from different classes of persons. Thus, they assume that the bronze objects, which are distinguished by their beauty of workmanship, may have been used by the rich; while the iron objects belonged to those less wealthy, and those of stone to the poor. This supposition is scarcely founded on probability, much less on a perfect acquaintance with the remains of antiquity.
It is quite true that tools and weapons of stone and bronze, and perhaps also of stone, bronze, and iron have, as has al- ready been remarked, been in use at the same time, in periods of transition, when bronze or iron was scarce in the country, and consequently very expensive; yet it is nevertheless no less true, that there were three distinct periods, in which the use of stone, bronze, and iron severally prevailed, in a most characteristic manner.
For if it be granted that bronze objects belonged only to the rich, how is it to be imagined that there were no, or rather exceedingly few, rich people in the northern parts of Sweden, and in the whole of Norway, where, it is well known, that, comparatively speaking, bronze objects belong to the rarest finds. Moreover it is scarcely probable that the rich would have used the inferior metal, bronze, for tools and
