A burial in Neolithic times.
And now, as our dreamer watched this new race of men fashioning their weapons, feeding their oxen, and hunting the wild stag, his attention was arrested by a long train of people crossing a neighbouring plain, weeping and wailing as they went. At the head of this procession, lying on a stretcher made of tree-boughs, lay a dead chieftain, and as the line moved on, men threw down their tools, and women their spinning, and joined the throng. On they went to where two upright slabs of stone with another laid across them formed the opening to a long mound or chamber. Into this the bearers passed with lighted torches, and in a niche ready prepared placed the dead chieftain in a sitting posture with the knees drawn up, placing by his side his flint spear and polished axe, his necklace of shells, and the bowl from which he had fed. Then followed the funeral feast, when, with shouts and wailing, fires were lighted, and animals slaughtered and cooked, while the chieftain was not forgotten, but portions were left for his use, and then the earth was piled up again around the mouth of the chamber, till it should be opened at some future time to place another member of his family by his side, or till in after ages the antiquary should rifle his resting-place to study the mode of burial in the Neolithic or Polished Stone Age.
Time passed on in the magician's dream, and little by little the caves were entirely deserted as men learnt to build huts of wood and stone. And as they advanced in knowledge they began to melt metals and pour them into moulds, making bronze knives and hatchets, swords and spears; and they fashioned brooches and bracelets of bronze and gold, though they still also used their necklaces of shells and their polished stone weapons. They began, too, to keep ducks and fowls, cows and horses; they knew how to weave in looms, and to make cloaks and tunics; and when they buried their dead it was no longer in a crouching position. They laid them decently to rest, as if in sleep, in the barrows where they are found to this day with bronze weapons by their side.
Then as time went on they learnt to melt even hard iron, and to beat it into swords and plough-shares, and they lived in well-built huts with stone foundations. Their custom of burial, too, was again changed, and they burnt their dead, placing the ashes in a funeral urn.
Fig. 82.
British relics.
1, A coin of the age of Constantine. 2, Bronze weapon from a Suffolk barrow. 3, Bronze bracelet from Liss in Hampshire.
By this time the Britons, as they were now called, had begun to gather together in villages and towns, and the Romans ruled over them. Now when men passed through the wild country they were often finely dressed in cloth tunics, wearing arm rings of gold, some even driving in war-chariots, carrying shields made of wickerwork covered with leather. Still many of the country people who laboured in the field kept their old clothing of beast skins; they grew their corn and stored it in cavities of the rocks; they made basket-work boats covered with skin, in which they ventured out to sea. So things went on for a long period till at last a troubled time came, and the quiet valleys were disturbed by wandering people who fled from the towns and took refuge in the forests; for the Romans after three hundred and fifty years of rule had gone back home to Italy, and a new and barbarous people called the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, came over the sea from Jutland and drove the Britons from their homes.
Fig. 83.