166 REV. G. R. HALL OX A BARROW 



Museum, which, came from a remarkable barrow near the Barras- 

 ford Station, where a second interment of an Anglo-Saxon war- 

 rior with his shield and sword — the former, to judge from the 

 silver riveting disks, being of rich workmanship — had taken 

 place centuries after that of his British predecessor. "We cannot 

 always determine the age of such sepulchral monuments merely 

 by their contained relics, as the different periods of the stone, 

 the bronze, and the iron age, of pre-historic archeology may well 

 be conceived to have overlapped, so to speak, or " dovetailed" 

 into each other. We might be inclined to attribute the "Warks- 

 haugh barrow to the earliest stone age, according to the usual 

 classification, and carry the date of its construction as far back (for 

 the rudeness of the flint weapons or implements will permit it) 

 to the very remote period which saw the inhabitation of the bone 

 caves, and the formation of the Kjokken-moddings of Denmark, 

 and the lake habitations of Switzerland, and other countries. Sir 

 John Lubbock has shown, however, in his "Pre-historic Times," 

 that "the arrow was employed after the first cannon had been 

 used in battle;" and that "it is evident, also, some nations, such 

 as the Fuegians, Andamaners, and others, are even now only in 

 an age of stone."* So that on the whole we may safely conclude 

 that the formers of these cists, and those who used the rude 

 implements which accompanied them to their last earthly rest- 

 ing place, were of that Celtic race who probably inhabited the 

 numerous "camps" and hut-circles, and left their names en- 

 graved, as it were, in the most unchangeable forms of nature — 

 in the rivers, and hills, and many local names of "Western 

 Northumberland. 



The beginning, therefore, of the age of bronze — the close of 

 that of stone — the Neo-lithic period of later ethnologists — cen- 

 turies, probably, before the Roman legions, under Agricola, first 

 traversed the eastern slope of this valley — undoubtedly saw the 

 pious hands of a kindred tribe erecting this family sepulchre. 

 Here, with solemn traditional rites, they laid their loved ones to 

 rest with the same sun shining over them, the same river running 



* Chap. I, p. 8. 



