Thus we gather from the early literature of the Scandinavians a very vivid impression of the character and accompaniments of their heathen burial. Yet this literary evidence is characteristically defective on special points that are of paramount interest to the archæologist. Hence, when it is attempted to be used scientifically, the result is what might be expected of a scientific operation conducted with unscientific materials. For instance, Dr. Dasent, gathering the literary evidence into one generalisation, concludes that the burial took place in a how or cairn, and that the body was laid in the how with goods and arms, sometimes in a sitting posture, sometimes even in a ship, but _always_ in a chamber, formed of baulks of timber or blocks of stone, over which earth and gravel were piled. Since it is the main object of our science to attain to great and wide generalisations from completed evidence, it is manifest that such a generalisation as this, which gives us what _always_ was the special character of the sepulchral structure for a given period, would be one of the most precious and costly fruits of scientific research. Founded on purely archæological evidence, it could only be the result of the completed investigation of all the grave-mounds of the period. As here given, it is arrived at by a much shorter process, viz. the comparison and critical interpretation of a few texts, for it is not expressly stated in any text, but is an inference from incidental expressions in several of them.[38] And the interest with which we must regard the inference lies in the fact that this special form of sepulchral mound, which is deduced from the literary evidence as having been _always_ the form in use throughout the Viking period, is a form which is almost archæologically unknown in that period. ----- Footnote 38: Sometimes the description of a burial mentions the digging of a grave instead of the raising of a mound. When Thorolf died, Egil took his body and prepared it according to the custom of the time, then they dug a grave and placed Thorolf in it with all his weapons and raiment, and Egil placed a gold bracelet on each of his arms, then they placed stones over him, and earth over all. -----