contact with one another, and having similar faiths and feelings, does not appear to admit of doubt. When, however, we come to look more closely at them, there are peculiarities about them which may account for even so great a lapse of time. The Braavalla circles are smaller, and on the whole perhaps, we may assume, degenerate. There are square and triangular graves, and other forms, which, so far as we know, are comparatively modern inventions, and, altogether, there are changes which may account for that lapse of time; but that more than seven centuries elapsed between the two seems to be most improbable.
To return, however, to King Hildetand. According to the saga, "After the battle the conqueror, Sigurd Ring, caused a search to be made for the body of his uncle. The body when found was washed and placed in the chariot in which Harald had fought, and transported into the interior of a tumulus which Sigurd had caused to be raised. Harald's horse was then killed and buried in the mound with the saddle of Ring, so that the king might at pleasure proceed to Walhalla either in his chariot or on horseback. Ring then gave a great funeral feast, and invited all the nobles and warriors present to throw into the mound great rings and noble armour, in honour of the king Harald. They then closed up the mound with care."[2] This mound still exists at Lethra's Harald, capital in Seeland. It was mentioned by Saxo Grammaticus in 1236,[3] and described and drawn by Olaus Wormius in 1643;[4] and no one ever doubted its identity, till recently the Museum authorities caused excavations to be
- ↑ The woodcut is copied from a drawing in Sjöborg, ii. fig. 214. It is repeated by Worsaae, loc. sup. cit., both copying from some original I have not cared to trace.
- ↑ Engelhardt, 'Guide illustré du Musée à Copenhague,' p. 33.
- ↑ 'Historia Danica,' viii. p. 133.
- ↑ 'Danicorum Monument.' libri sex, i. p. 12.
