554 
above sixty feet in height, and about 300 feet in circumfer- 
ence, is popularly known by the name of Willey-hou (liou 
being in that part of the country synonymous with barrow.) 
It stands on the slope of one of the lower chalk hills of the 
wolds, a few miles inward from the coast, at the distance of 
somewhat less than a mile from the village of Wold- Newton 
(which is rather to the northward of it), and about a mile and 
a half from that of North Burton (which lies nearly south.) 
At the foot of the bank, below Willey-hou, runs one of those 
curious intermitting streams common to the chalk districts, 
which is known by the name of the Gypsies. 
On Monday, the 5th of October, a sufficient number of 
men were set to work in cutting a large trench from one side 
of the tumulus to the centre, but the time required for such 
an excavation had been much underrated, and up to the 
Thursday the only result was the clearing of a large portion 
of a level floor, at some elevation from the base of the 
tumulus, which was covered with a coating of wood ashes and 
other burnt materials. On the day just mentioned, our atten- 
tion was carried away to another discovery, that of some 
interesting Anglo-Saxon interments near Scarborough, which 
proved for the moment the more attractive of the two. 
This discovery had interrupted our plans with regard to 
the great tumulus of Willey-hou, and as it would have required 
another week or more to explore it properly, it was abandoned 
for the present, I have no doubt whatever that it is a sepul- 
chral interment of the Roman period, but it may probably 
contain nothing but an urn filled with bones. This great 
tumulus is, however, especially interesting from its connection 
with the stories and legends of ancient times, which are 
as much characteristic of races as language itself, and 
travel with them or with their divisions in the same manner. 
The example I have to relate shows how durable such 
stories are in the minds of peoples. We sometimes 
