Note 34 — LECTURE I. (17th October 1881.) CHRISTIAN AND PAGAN BURIAL—VIKING BURIALS.

Including those found in the Viking cemetery at Pierowall, in Westray, Orkney, the total number of these brooches found in Scotland is thirty-two. The total number of Celtic brooches that I was able to enumerate was fourteen. The difference is striking, and the fact that the foreign form occurs in larger numbers than the native form is so opposed to what is naturally expected, that the explanation becomes of some interest. It is simple, but significant. The largeness of the larger number is an archæological result of Paganism. The smallness of the smaller number is an archæological result of Christianity. The effect of Paganism was that those who had brooches were buried with them. The effect of Christianity was that brooches ceased to be buried with those who had them. The tendency of the one system was to take all the brooches ultimately into the soil with the remains of the generations that wore them; the tendency of the other system was to keep the brooches from going underground. Hence we see that the preponderance of these foreign relics in the soil of Scotland (which is almost destitute of native relics of the same age and purpose) is an archæological result which is directly dependent on the difference between Paganism and Christianity.