My Answer.
Worthy Sir,
Concerning artificial Mounts and Hills, raised without Fortifications attending them, in most parts of England, the most considerable thereof I conceive to be of two kinds; that is, either Signal Boundaries and Land-Marks, or else sepulchral Monuments or Hills of Interrment for remarkable and eminent persons, especially such as died in the Wars.
As for such which are sepulchral Monuments, upon bare and naked view they are not appropriable unto any of the three Nations of the Romans, Saxons or Danes, who, after the Britaines, have possessed this Land; because upon strict account, they may be appliable unto them all.
For that the Romans used such hilly Sepultures, beside many other testimonies, seems confirmable from the practice of Germanicus, who thus interred the unburied Bones of the slain Souldiers of Varus; and that expression of Virgil, of high antiquity among the Latins,
——facit ingens monte sub alto
Regis Dercenni terreno ex aggere Bustum.
That the Saxons made use of this way is collectible from several Records, and that pertinent expression of Lelandus,[269] Saxones gens Christi ignara, in hortis amœnis, si domi forte ægroti moriebantur; sin foris et bello occisi, in egestis per campos terræ tumulis (quos Burgos appellabant) sepulti sunt.
That the Danes observed this practice, their own Antiquities do frequently confirm, and it stands precisely delivered by Adolphus Cyprius, as the learned Wormius[270] hath observed. Dani olim in memoriam Regum et Heroum, ex terra coacervata ingentes moles, Montium instar eminentes, erexisse, credibile omnino ac probabile est, atque illis in locis ut plurimum, quo sæpe homines commearent, atque iter haberent, ut in viis publicis posteritati memoriam consecrarent, et quodammodo immortalitati mandarent. And the like Monuments are yet to be observed in Norway and Denmark in no small numbers.
So that upon a single view and outward observation they may be the Monuments of any of these three Nations: Although the greatest number, not improbably, of the Saxons; who fought many Battels with the Britaines and Danes, and also between their own Nations, and left the proper name of Burrows for these Hills still retained in many of them, as the seven Burrows upon Salisbury Plain, and in many other parts of England.