148 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 191 1 



west. Besides these, we have prehistoric villages at Cam Long 

 Down, Minchinhampton, Selsley, Stinchcombe, and Westridge 

 Hills. 



Much of the evidence of the life of our forefathers remains 

 obscure, because the interments and their mobilier are our only 

 sources of information. It is only the happy circumstance 

 that these people believed that the dead in the other world 

 were dependent upon their surviving relatives for the needs 

 of life, which preserves this evidence for our use. The persis- 

 tence of this belief from the prehistoric age down to the present 

 is one of the links which connect us with these earlier people. 

 When we lead the charger of a dead officer, with his boots, 

 helmet and sword behind his coffin, we unconsciously record 

 the permanence of this belief, because as late as the 17th 

 century we have proof from Germany that the horse was 

 actually killed with his owner to be at his service in the other 

 life. Not long ago an Irish widow was found putting a bottle 

 of whisky in the coffin of her dead husband for his refreshment, 

 and as recently as 1865, when Lord Palmerston was buried, it 

 is recorded that many ladies present took off their rings and 

 flung them on his coffin. If they had been asked to explain 

 the reason of this act, they would probably have said that it 

 was merely a tribute of affection or respect for the dead states- 

 man. But, in essence, it is a survival of the same belief which 

 induced pre-historic men on the Cotteswolds to place food and 

 flint implements in the grave of their chieftain. 



The same persistence of custom is seen in the case of 

 witchcraft. One of our most famous local legends tells of the 

 Witch of Berkeley, who warned her friends to lay her in a 

 stag's hide within a stone coffer bound with iron and lead ; 

 and if she so remained for three nights they might bury her. 

 But as the chronicler tellls us : " Al was in vaine, for in the 

 first two nightes which the psalmes were in soundinge, the 

 Di veils havinge easily broken the doores, as lightly brake the 

 two utmost iron chaines ; and on the third night about cock 

 crowinge, the place shakinge, one with a terrible countenance 

 and of a mighty tall stature, havinge broken open the cover 

 of the chest commanded the dead body to arise, who answeringe 

 that she could not by reason of the bonds ; ' be thou loosed,' 



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