Note 47 — LECTURE II (20th October 1881.) NORTHERN BURIALS AND HOARDS.

A few notices of these are appended to show the character of the burials:—At Hof, in the district of Hedenmarken, round the church are several grave-mounds. In some of these there were found, in 1842, four axe-heads, three spear-heads, fragments of two double-edged swords, a pair of stirrups, two bridle-bits, ten arrow-points, a fire-steel, fragments of a shield-boss, a ring, a kind of pincers, and other fragments, all of iron, along with two vessels of steatite, the one having an iron handle, and the other containing burnt bones and oxidised iron fragments.—Nicolaysen’s Norske Fornlevninger, p. 59. In a circular grave-mound at Gaarden, Ostre Alm, Hedenmark, there was found an urn or vessel of steatite with remains of its iron handle, a two-edged sword contorted and broken into three pieces, a bent spear-head of iron, an iron axe-head, two shield-bosses of iron, a bridle-bit, a pair of stirrups, a strap-buckle and two iron tags, a portion of a comb of bone, pretty long, and toothed only on one side, made of small pieces of bone held between two slips of bone riveted together, two hemispherical table-men of bone, and a small figure in bone of animal resembling a dog. In the urn lay ashes.—Foreningen for Norske Fortidsmindesmækers Bevaring, 1866, p. 88. At Nordby Sagbrug, Akershus, there were found in a small low grave-mound, the pieces of a bowl-shaped urn of steatite, 7 inches diameter, in which were ashes and burnt bones, and along with it a two-edged sword of iron, the blade 30¼ inches long, a spear-head, an axe-blade, and other iron relics.—Foren. for Norske Fortids. Bev., 1867, p. 49. At Elset, in Solum parish, province of Bratsberg, there was found a bowl-shaped urn of steatite of the kind so commonly occurring in graves of the later Iron Age. It had an iron hank round the rim and an iron bow-handle, and was full of burnt bones.—Foren. for Norske Fortids. Bev., 1868, p. 115.