MORTIMER: SUMMARY OF SO-CALLED " DANES' GRAVES." 293 
in these barrows it is ditlicult to arrive at any conclusion as to the 
period of their erection, or the people by whom they were made. 
The name " Dane's Graves " cannot, I think, be taken as proof of 
their Danish origin, for that designation has been frequently 
applied to camps, lines of entrenchment, and barrows,* which have 
certainly no connection with that people. The cruelties practised 
by the Danes seem to have made so strong an impression, that the 
people who suffered by them appear, sometimes, to have called 
certain works of unknown origin after the names of their oppressors, 
just as similar remains are named after the Devil. At the same 
time, some weight must be allowed to the popular tradition, and if 
nothing about the grave-hills is inconsistent with a Scandinavian 
origin, it is only fair to admit the probability of their being the 
burial mounds of some Danish settlers."! 
Canon Greenwell adds : — " My own opinion is against the 
Scandinavian origin. The mode of interment is unlike any which 
has been found in Denmark, Norway, or Sweden ; I do not make 
this assertion upon my own authority, but on that of Mr. C. F. 
Herbst, of Copenhagen, the Scandinavian archaeologist, to whom my 
notes of these barrows were submitted. The pottery, also, is not 
such as is found in Danish grave-mounds, either in shape or fabric. 
On the other hand, if we attribute these mounds to a tribe of 
kindred origin with those who buried under the ordinary round 
barrows, we are met by more than one difficulty. The bodies in the 
* Danes' Graves ' had been interred in a much more contracted 
position than is usual in the British burials. The great number of 
these barrows, and their close grouping are also peculiar features : 
for though two or more 'British' grave-hills are frequently found 
Therfield, near Bo3'ston, with the remains of other animals, were found in 
a barrow two crania, which Prof. Duckett considered to be those of goats. 
Proc. of the Society of Antiquaries, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 306. — Canox 
Greenwell. 
* The "Danes' Hills," near Skipwith, in the East Riding, are barrows 
which contain interments of burnt bodies having nothing in common with what 
we know of Danish interments, — Canon Greenwell. 
t The burials are those of a settled population and not of any mere 
invaders. This is indicated by the number of the barrows, and the frequency 
of the interments of women, as well as that of a child. — Canon Greenwell. 
