the ox as the primary work
animal. Other farm implements were: coulters, which gave free passage to
the plough by cutting weeds and turf, picks, spades and shovels, reaping
hooks and scythes, and sledge hammers and anvils. Strips of land for
agriculture were added from waste land as the community grew. Waste
lands were moors bristling with brushwood, or gorse, heather and wanton
weeds, reed-coated marshes, quaking peat-bogs, or woods grown haphazard
on sand or rock. With iron axes, forests could be cleared to provide
more arable land.
Some villages had a smith, a wheelwright, and a cooper. There were
villages which had one or two market days in each week. Cattle,
sheep, pigs, poultry, calves, and hare were sold there. London was
a town on the Thames River under the protection of the Celtic
river god Lud: Lud's town. It's huts were probably built over the
water, as was Celtic custom. It was a port for foreign trade. Near
the town was Ludhill. Each Celtic tribe in England made its own
coinage. Silver and bronze were first used, and then gold. The
metal was put into a round form and then placed between two
engraved dies, which were hit.
Flint workers mined with deer antler picks and ox shoulder blade
shovels for flint to grind into axes, spearheads, and arrowheads.
Mine shafts were up to thirty feet deep and necessitated the use
of chalk lamps fueled by animal fat with wicks of moss. The flint
was hauled up in baskets.
Common men and women were now buried in tombs within memorial
burial mounds of earth with stone entrances and interior chambers.
A man's weapons and shield were buried with him and a woman's
spindle and weaving baton, and perhaps beads or pottery with her.
At times, mounds of earth would simply be covered over piles of
corpses and ashes in urns. In these mass graves, some corpses had
spear holes or sword cuts, indicating death by violence. The Druid
priests, the learned class of the Celts, taught the Celts to
believe in reincarnation of the soul after death of one body into
another body. They also threw prized possessions into lakes and
rivers as sacrifices to water gods. They placed images of gods and
goddesses in shrines, which were sometimes large enough to be
temples. They thought of their gods as supernatural magicians.
With the ability to grow food and the acquisition of land by
conquest by invading groups, the population grew. There were
different classes of men. The freemen were eorls [nob
|