The archaeology of tradition : an address to a meeting of the members of the Society held at Gloucester, 9th March, 1904 / y E. Sidney Hartland.

Edwin Sidney Hartland

Date:: [1904?]

Credit: The archaeology of tradition : an address to a meeting of the members of the Society held at Gloucester, 9th March, 1904 / y E. Sidney Hartland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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$regard to the dead between the Norsemen and the Neolithic or the Bronze Age peoples who reared the barrows of South Britain. All alike believed in a life after death led within the barrow ; all alike were worshippers of the dead ; all alike buried with the corpse, or the ashes, arms and implements and utensils. The arms, implements and utensils thus buried were not buried there simply as a barren honour. They were buried there because they belonged to the dead, and were meant for their use. The pottery from the barrows with which we fill our museums was intended for their feasts. Sometimes we find it broken, and not by the careless pick of the workman who unearths it, but purposely broken when it was put m the grave. None the less is it believed to be useful to the dead in the other life. This belief still subsists among our peasantry. A clergyman wrote to me a little while ago about an incident that happened in a little town in I.incoln- shire of which he was rector. “ One day,” he said, “ my chiu'chwardens called my attention to a newly-made grave, on which lay a mug and jug, evidently quite freshly broken, and said : ‘ The boys ha\ e been at it again [stone-throwing], and, what’s more, have stolen the flowers that Widow D. had put upon her husband’s grave.’ I saw at once that no stone had caused the fractures, so putting off my officials with some excuse, I went to see the widow, and said to her : ‘ Well, Mrs. D., how came you to forget to give your old man his mug and his jug ? ’ ‘ Ah, sir,’ she replied, ‘ I knew you would understand all about it. I was that moidered with crying that I clean forgot to put ’em in the coffin. I puts the groat in his mouth to pa} his footing, but blame me if I doesn’t leave out t’ owd mug and jug. So I goes and does t’ next best. I deads ’em both over his grave, and says I to mysen : “ My old man, he set a vast of store, he did, by yon mug and jug, and when their ghoastes gets over on yon side he ’ll holler out, ‘ Yon’s nunc ; hand em over lo me! ’” and I’d like to see them as would stop him a-having of them an’ all.’ ”i 1 Folk-Lore, ix. 187,$