In the British tumuli, hollows beside the dead are of common occurrence. Mr. Greenwell says: “It is of frequent occurrence to find holes, sunk below the natural surface, within the area of a barrow, and not usually in close proximity to any interment, though in some instances such has been found to be the case. Sometimes as many as four or five have been met with in a single barrow. They are of various sizes, and differ in shape, but they are generally circular, about 1½ feet in diameter, and the same in depth. In the greater number of cases they are filled with the ordinary materials of which the mound itself is composed, and contain nothing besides; but at other times pieces of animal, and much more rarely of human bones, charcoal, potsherds, and burnt earth, and stone are found in them.... It has suggested itself to me, that they may have been made as receptacles of food or of some other perishable material, and that they answered the same purpose as the vessels of pottery are supposed to have done, which are such frequent accompaniments of a burial. Their not being usually placed in close contact with the body is a fact not perhaps very consistent with this explanation of their purpose, but I am unable to offer any one more suggestion.” I differ from Mr. Greenwell in one point only--that these basins being at a distance from the body may be inconsistent with the explanation he proposes. On the contrary, I conceive that these cup-like hollows were at the circumference of the original mound, and were often replenished with food or drink. As the mound spread through the action of rain, or as other interments were made in it, and it was enlarged, these basins became buried. [Illustration: _Fig. 53._--DOLMEN AT LARAMIERE (LOT), WITH CUP HOLLOW ON COVERER.] The parkin cakes baked in Yorkshire in November, the simnel or soul-mass cakes of Lancashire, the _gauffres_ baked at All Souls-tide in Belgium, are all reminiscences of the food prepared and offered to the dead at All Souls, the great day of commemoration of the departed. Not only did the living eat the cakes, but they were given as well to the dead. In Belgium the idea still holds that the pancakes or _gauffres_ avail the souls; but through a confusion of ideas, the ignorant suppose that the living by eating them satisfy the dead, and as these pancakes are very indigestible, it is customary to hire robust men to gorge themselves on _gauffres_ so as to content the departed ones with a good meal. A has a dear deceased relative B. In order that B may be well supplied with pancake, A ought to eat a plentiful supply; but A shrinks from an attack of indigestion, which a surfeit would bring on, so he hires C to glut himself on _gauffres_ in his room.