BIRCH. 211 



Danes. Here, then, all those who had successively in- 

 habited the contiguous dwellings were laid side by side in 

 their undistinguished graves ; and, since the father of the 

 thane cleared that lone spot and gathered his vassals 

 round him, it was sorrowful to think how quickly those 

 mounds had risen. Here they lay, and the moon shone 

 cold and clear upon them, and it shone also upon other 

 places where the dead were lying; for, throughout this 

 wild and lonely region, barrows and tumuli abounded the 

 Briton and the Roman, the Saxon and the Dane, had laid 

 them down in by-gone days, as generations appeared and 

 vanished. Westward of the village a considerable mound 

 of earth might still be seen : dead men were there; fierce 

 Saxons in their days of pride, war-chiefs who came in their 

 pirate vessels up the river, and carried death and desolation 

 on either side. Further on, arose a considerable tumulus, 

 where the Danes interred, in after years, many of their 

 companions who fell during an encounter with the Saxons. 

 This tumulus was beside the brook Afonig, at that part 



