416 Rev. Wm. Green well on Two Ancient Interments. 



more stones, set on edge, and covered in by one or more 

 slabs. In both cases, the land having been under cultiva- 

 tion for a long period of time, it is impossible to say whether 

 a barrow — the mound thrown up over the place of burial to 

 mark the spot where the dead were laid to rest — had ever 

 existed. Although it is true that instances have occurred 

 where it is scarcely possible to suppose that a mound had 

 ever covered the grave ; yet the erection of a mound, of 

 greater or less size, is so universal, not only in Great Britain 

 but in almost every part of the world, that it is most probable 

 in these two cases there had once been a barrow, but that all 

 trace of it had disappeared during a lengthened process of 

 tillage. 



The first burial was found actually within the precincts of 

 the town of Wooler, and the circumstances of the discovery 

 are somewhat peculiar. Mr Dixon, a blacksmith, of Wooler, 

 had occasion, in June, 1872, to bury his mule, and thought 

 that his garden would form a proper burial ground for the 

 animal. In making the grave, at a depth of three feet below 

 the surface,, he came upon a large slab of stone, which being 

 of a nature foreign to the stone of the immediate locality, he 

 justly concluded must have been placed there by the hand of 

 man. His son, who was with him, broke off a corner of 

 the stone, and finding there was a hollow below, a candle 

 was got, and then, to their amazement, they saw, lying at the 

 bottom of the hollow, the bones of a skeleton, contracted 

 after the usual British fashion, the knees being drawn up 

 towards the chin. Mr Dixon then, after removing the skull, 

 proceeded to inter his mule in the burial cist of the ancient 

 British owner ; and, if nothing more had been heard of the 

 discovery, it is quite possible that antiquaries of a time long 

 subsequent to our own, might have been sadly led astray as 

 to primitive burial customs, by finding the bones of a mule 

 in company with some of those of a human being. Our 

 fellow -member, Mr Wightman, fortunately, however, heard 

 of the exhumation with the subsequent inhumation, and 

 thinking it probable that some article or other might have 

 been buried with the body, he proceeded to disinter the mule. 

 It happened as Mr Wightman expected; and we have to 

 thank his intelligent forethought that the only thing which 

 had accompanied the interment was not lost to sight : it was 

 a button of inferior jet, or some other form of lignite. 



