Note 188 — Chapter XVIII · VARIOUS FORMS OF GRAVES.

At Eds, Upland, there is a very fine ship-form grave of twenty-eight stones, 182 feet long and 50 feet wide. The largest stone at one end is 9 feet in height, and is evidently a bautastone; the rest, although large, each measuring several feet in circumference, are common boulders. At the centre of the ship there lies a similar stone, where, as well as at the ends, there is a small mound-like elevation.

In the woods at Braidfloar, between Levide and Sproge in Götland, there is a ship-form grave 144 feet long, but only 16 feet at its widest part; the stones, however, are small, none being higher than 3 feet.

At Lungersas, Götland, Nerike, there is a ship-form grave in which stands a stone with an inscription in later runes.

There is also a bautastone with runes, in one end of a ship-form at Lilla Lundley in Lids, Södermanland, upon which are the words “Spjute and Halfdan raised this stone after Skarde their brother. He went eastward with Roar. In Serkland lies the son.” (See p. 356 Yellow Book, Den yngre jernalder.)

A ship-form grave between the post-stations of Ljungby and Hamneda province of Kronobergs is 92 feet long and 32 feet broad; the neighbourhood is full of grave-mounds and bautastones.

Another near the shore of the Baltic, in Eista parish, Götland, is 50 feet by 16 feet. A third, on the island of Faró, near Götland, is 50 feet by 8 feet.

We see by this that their breadth does not always bear the same proportion to their length.

In two ship forms at Hjortehammar, in Blekinge, there were found burned bones, ashes, two of the bowl-shaped fibulæ of bronze so common during the later iron age, a round fibula of silver, some glass beads, &c.

In one at Raftötangen, in Tanum parish, was an urn filled with ashes, on the top of which lay a finely ornamented damascened sword of the later iron age.