210 THE BRIGANTES. 



The discoveries here narrated are on many accounts the most 

 remarkable yet made in the tumuli of Yorkshire. The presence, 

 nay, the abundance of iron, the variety of ornaments, wrought in 

 different materials, the glass, the jet, amber, gold, &c., might 

 lead us to assign a comparatively late date to these tumuli, and 

 to separate them by many centuries from the mounds which 

 contain no metal of any sort. No urn is mentioned. 



In May 1836, I was one of a numerous party who proceeded 

 with the late Mr. Jonathan Gray from the house of the Vicar 

 of Kirkby Moorside, to inspect and open some of the tumuli 

 and cairns which are scattered over the dreary hills north of the 

 Vale of Pickering. Our route lay along the line of moorland 

 road from Kirkby Moorside through Gillamoor to Ingleby. We 

 were soon joined by large groups of the country people, and 

 their ready and vigorous arms opened for us several mounds. 

 Most of them had been explored before, but two of the exca- 

 vations deserve notice. One was on the edge of a broad and 

 elevated terrace, sloping rapidly in a westerly direction toward 

 Bransdale. Here, under a slight heathy mound, was found a 

 wide natural fissure of the rock, and in this an urn of unbaked 

 clay, large, thick, and rude in design, with no mark of the wheel, 

 irregularly scratched, rather than ornamented, by the point of 

 some hard substance. This was undoubtedly a British inter- 

 ment, and probably of very early date. Such burials in fissures 

 and caves may have preceded all vTroycua or artificial graves. 



Near the line of road which has been mentioned, a conspicuous 

 object for many miles round, was the large conical heap of stones 

 called Obtrush Roque. In the dales of this part of Yorkshire 

 we might expect to find, if anywhere, traces of the old super- 

 stitions of the Northmen, as well as their independence and 

 hospitality, and we do find that Obtrush Eoque was haunted by 

 the goblin*. But ' Hob ' was also a familiar and troublesome 

 visitor of one of the farmers, and caused him so much vexation 

 and petty loss, that he resolved to quit his house in Farndale 



* ' Hobthrust, or rather Hob o' the Hurst, a spirit supposed to haunt 

 woods only.' Grose, Provinc. Gloss. 



