Horse-shoes of this period are occasionally met with in interments when the horse has been buried with his rider, or otherwise. One example, so as to show the form, will be sufficient. It was found at Gloucester some years ago, along with the lamp and circular fibulæ here engraved, and with other relics of the same period. Of the other articles it will not be necessary to make further mention. [Illustration: Fig. 324.] CHAPTER XI. Anglo-Saxon Period--Distribution of Anglo-Saxon Population over England--General characteristics of Grave-mounds--Modes of Burial--Poem of Beowulf--Interments by Cremation and by Inhumation--Articles deposited with the Dead--Positions of the Body--Double and other Interments--Burial in Urns--Cemeteries and Barrows. The grave-mounds and cemeteries of the Anglo-Saxon period present marked and decided features of difference to those of either of the preceding periods; and again, the characters of these mounds and cemeteries vary in different parts of the kingdom, according as such districts were inhabited by different tribes or peoples. The date usually assigned to the first coming of the Saxons into England, after the final departure of the Romans, is the middle of the fifth century. They landed on the Isle of Thanet, and shortly afterwards established themselves in Kent, and became a kingdom. “Within thirty years another body of Saxons settled upon the south coast of Britain, taking possession of the tract now called Sussex, or the South Saxons. At the beginning of the sixth century a third detachment from the same Germanic family landed further westward, and founded the kingdom of the West Saxons, in which was included the Isle of Wight. From the same source which supplies the brief notices of these events, we learn that towards the middle of the sixth century were formed the states of the East and Middle Saxons, in the districts which, in consequence, took the names of Essex and Middlesex. We also gather that the Angles who settled in the east and north-east of Britain, and in the interior parts, probably made their first descents towards the middle of the sixth century; so that the kingdoms known as those of the East Angles (Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire), the Middle Angles, the Northumbrians (from the Humber northwards), and Mercia (on the borders of Wales), appear not to have been definitely settled until at least a century after the landing of the Saxons in Kent, in A.D. 449. Vague and unsatisfactory as are most of the details of Saxon history, the gradual subjugation of Britain by successive immigrations of Teutonic tribes may at least be accepted as the most reconcilable with reason; and there seems nothing very repugnant to the more rigid rules of criticism to regard these tribes under their historic designation of Jutes, Saxons, and Angles; and, further, to believe that at least a century was required to transform Britain,