We can vividly realise why the people laid their dead to rest by that sea they loved so much during their lifetime, and upon which they had sailed so often. The mariner as he passed by could behold the graves of the dead and victorious champions, whose memory was always kept fresh by the _scalds_[185] who sang his exploits generation after generation, thus filling the youth of the country with pride, and making them wish to emulate the deeds of these men, often their kinsmen of old, who had gone to Valhalla. The mounds and cairns are not always round, they are sometimes square, oblong, rectangular or triangular. The round mounds and cairns exist in different parts of the world, and in Scandinavia as far back as the stone and bronze ages; the vast number of bautastones seen all over the country shows also how well the injunctions of Odin were carried out by his followers in that respect. Some of these are very imposing, and their dark forms look weird enough against the landscape or the clear or gloomy sky. One of the finest stood in Brastod parish, Bohuslän, now lying prostrate and broken, its height being 26 feet; and its place was on one corner of a stone set of rectangular graves 40 feet in length and 28 feet in width. [Illustration: Fig. 711.—Bautastone (from grave shown on p. 301) with nineteen runes; 1/15 real size; 5 feet 8 inches in height; width, 3 feet 2 inches; 9 inches thick; length of rune, 2 feet 1½ inches. ] [Illustration: Fig. 712.—Bautastone on a mound 200 feet in circumference and 7 feet high, Runesten Grimeton (Bohuslän), Halland; 19½ feet high, 4½ feet wide. Surrounding it are mounds and graves of various shapes. ] [Illustration: Fig. 713.—Oblong mound, Yttersala, Södermanland; 33 feet in diameter. In the vicinity are numerous other graves of various shapes. ] [Illustration: Fig. 714.—Square stone-set grave. Södermanland. ] [Illustration: Fig. 715.—Rectangular stone-set graves with bautastones. Length, 70 feet; width, 24 feet.—Färentuna parish, Upland, Sweden. ] [Illustration: Fig. 716.—Rows of mounds with bautastones from 4½ to nearly 6 feet high, Rekarnebygden, Södermanland. Near by are many other mounds and stone-set graves. ] [Illustration: Fig. 717.—Square stone-set graves with large boulders at the corners and centre. ] [Illustration: Fig. 718.—Triangular grave; sides of triangle about 50 feet; corner stones about 3 feet high. In the middle of the south-west side are two stones, 5 feet apart, with a slab between them, one 3 feet, the other 4 feet high. Thorsbacken, Nerike, Sweden. ]