in the contracted cist; and there is no failing to which antiquarian observers seem at present more liable than that of seeing too much. An intelligent correspondent writes from Orkney,-- "Graves are frequently found in which the skeletons lie in various positions; in some cases as if the bodies had been huddled into the grave without any care; in others the knees are considerably bent, and the skeletons lie on the right side. Several such examples have been discovered in Sandwick; and in a grave which I recently opened in Westray, the skeleton was found on its right side in a similar posture. I examined it carefully, and it conveyed the impression to my mind that the individual had been slain in battle, and the body had been laid in the grave in the posture it was found on the field of conflict. A similar posture has been observed in skeletons found in different islands. The rude figure of a Calvary cross carved on the stone which formed a side of one of the graves in Sanday, seems to indicate that they were made subsequent to the introduction of Christianity, in the same way that a mallet-head of gneiss, beautifully polished, found at the right hand of a skeleton buried in a sitting posture in a grave in Sandwick, denoted a date prior to that era."[83] It is possible that the body laid on its right side with contracted limbs, may be found to indicate the transition-period prior to its interment at full length. The latter mode of burial appears, in England at least, to have been restored in Anglo-Saxon times, and before the introduction of Christianity.