Fig. 488.

Fig. 489.

Besides the objects here spoken of, a large variety of interesting remains of a miscellaneous character are found in the Saxon graves, but which, however interesting they may be, do not require in my present work to be specially noted.

I have endeavoured in the foregoing pages to give, in as brief a form as was consistent with a clear description of the objects, a faithful picture of the endless stores of treasures which the grave-mounds of our earliest forefathers open out to us, and to point out, with the aid of illustrations, the characteristics of each of the three great divisions, so as to enable my readers correctly to appropriate any remains which may come under their notice. I have purposely, and studiously, avoided theory and conjecture as far as was at all possible; contenting myself rather with bringing forward facts, which observations, personal or otherwise, into the grave-mounds and their contents have established, than speculating upon matters which can have no real bearing upon the subject.

It is said that “there is nothing new under the sun.” The researches which have been made into the grave-mounds of the three great periods—the Celtic, the Romano-British, and the Anglo-Saxon—tend immeasurably to show the approximate truth of this adage, and my readers, from the foregoing pages, will be able to judge pretty correctly how many of our so-called modern inventions and appliances were common to, and in use by, our predecessors of “centuries and tens of centuries” of years gone by.

INDEX.