In the saga of Egil and Asmund is a queer story of two men who swore brotherhood with each other, that he who survived the other should spend three nights in the cairn with his dead brother, “and then depart _if he liked_.” The saga goes on to tell how that one of these, Aran, was slain, then his fellow, Asmund, “threw up a cairn, and placed by the dead man his horse, with saddle and bridle, and all his harness and his banner, his hawk, also, and his hound; Aran sat in the high stool in full armour. Then Asmund had his chair brought into the cairn and sat there, and the cairn was closed on them. In the first night Aran rose from his stool and killed hawk and hound, and ate them both. In the second night Aran stood up and slew his horse, and tore it in pieces, rending it with his teeth, and he ate the horse, the blood running over his jaws. And he invited Asmund to eat with him. The third night Asmund felt heavy with sleep, and he snoozed off, and was not aware before the dead man had gripped him by both ears and had torn them off his head. Asmund then drew his sword, hewed off the head of Aran, took fire, and burned him to ashes. Then he went to the rope and was drawn up, and the cairn was closed. But Asmund carried away with him all the treasure it contained.”[20] The Norsemen were buried seated in their chairs or in their boats, but the builders of the megalithic monuments were interred lying on their sides, with their hands folded, as though in sleep. Their great dolmens and covered avenues were family cemeteries. The slab at the east end was movable, so as to allow of admission into the tomb on each fresh death in the family. A hole in the stone at the foot is very usual. Of that elsewhere. The latest interments in a dolmen are always nearest the opening; sometimes the more ancient dead have been removed farther back in the monument to make room for the new-comers. There is an allusion in Snorn’s Heimskringla to these holes in the kists containing the dead: “Freyr fell sick and his men raised a great mound, in which they placed a door with three holes in it. Now when Freyr was dead they conveyed him secretly into the mound, but told the Swedes he was alive; and they kept watch over him for three years. They brought all the taxes into the mound--through one hole they thrust in the gold, through another they put in the silver, and through the third the copper money that was paid.”[21] It is probable that the Scandinavians followed to some extent the usage of the race that preceded them, and used their megalithic monuments, much as we know that tumuli were employed for later interments, and by races different from that which raised the tumuli. That the idea of sleep was connected with death in many cases of burials, is certain, from the position given to the corpse, the hands are folded and the knees drawn up.