I have not time to enlarge upon this Subject: 'Pray let this pass, as it is, for a Letter and not for a Treatise. I am _Yours_, etc. OF ARTIFICIAL HILLS, MOUNTS OR BURROWS In many parts of England. What they are, to what end raised, and by what Nations. TRACT IX My honoured Friend Mr. _E. D._[268] his _Quære_. 'In my last Summer's Journey through _Marshland_, _Holland_ and a great part of the _Fenns_, I observed divers artificial heaps of Earth of a very large magnitude, and I hear of many others which are in other parts of those Countries, some of them are at least twenty foot in direct height from the level whereon they stand. I would gladly know your opinion of them, and whether you think not that they were raised by the Romans or Saxons to cover the Bones or Ashes of some eminent persons?' [268] [Sir William Dugdale.--ED.] My Answer. _Worthy Sir_, Concerning artificial Mounts and Hills, raised without Fortifications attending them, in most parts of _England_, the most considerable thereof I conceive to be of two kinds; that is, either Signal Boundaries and Land-Marks, or else sepulchral Monuments or Hills of Interrment for remarkable and eminent persons, especially such as died in the Wars. As for such which are sepulchral Monuments, upon bare and naked view they are not appropriable unto any of the three Nations of the Romans, Saxons or Danes, who, after the Britaines, have possessed this Land; because upon strict account, they may be appliable unto them all. For that the Romans used such hilly Sepultures, beside many other testimonies, seems confirmable from the practice of _Germanicus_, who thus interred the unburied Bones of the slain Souldiers of _Varus_; and that expression of _Virgil_, of high antiquity among the Latins, --_facit ingens monte sub alto_ _Regis Dercenni terreno ex aggere Bustum._ That the Saxons made use of this way is collectible from several Records, and that pertinent expression of _Lelandus_,[269] _Saxones gens Christi ignara, in hortis amœnis, si domi forte ægroti moriebantur; sin foris et bello occisi, in egestis per campos terræ tumulis (quos Burgos appellabant) sepulti sunt_. [269] Leland. _in Assertione Regis_ Arthuri. That the Danes observed this practice, their own Antiquities do frequently confirm, and it stands precisely delivered by _Adolphus Cyprius_, as the learned _Wormius_[270] hath observed. _Dani olim in memoriam Regum et Heroum, ex terra coacervata ingentes moles, Montium instar eminentes, erexisse, credibile omnino ac probabile est, atque illis in locis ut plurimum, quo sæpe homines commearent, atque iter haberent, ut in viis publicis posteritati memoriam consecrarent, et quodammodo immortalitati mandarent._ And the like Monuments are yet to be observed in _Norway_ and _Denmark_ in no small numbers. [270] Wormius _in Monumentis Danicis_.