o, but without coffins, and they were not of the race of
giants; and then, at a little distance, there was a great pit, filled
with the bones of men, women, and children, as if a slaughtered
multitude had been flung into a common grave. In this pit were found
some beads, light blue in colour, some sherds of red glazed pottery,
and a few fragments of bronze. Over all was scattered a vast heap of
limpet-shells.

Here is one of the fascinating problems of archaeology, which comes
with the touch of romance to the dry study of minutiae: When were these
burials made? Are they of two different dates? The giant of the stone
coffin perhaps belonged to the far-off Stone Age, already grown dim and
legendary to these later peoples, who knew of the working of metal and
the making of glass. And were they sacrificed to him, as a dark hero
or demi-god of the past, to propitiate him against plague or conquest?
And what is the magical significance of the limpet-shells, which cover
them and him alike? These questions, and many others, will, I am
convinced, be answered by the patient research of archaeology within
comparatively few years. The suggestion that this interment is Danish,
and is the remnant of the force defeated by Alfred the Great outside
Kenwith Castle, is, I think, untenable; the bones of women and children
being found with those of men alone disproves it, apart from the
inaccessibility of Lundy and the very great antiquity of the stone
coffins.

But whoever they may be who left their bones here, it is certain the
story of their lying there is a tragedy, of bloody sacrifice or more
bloody massacre, like all the histories of wild animals and of
primitive peoples.

Not far from the Giant's Grave, as this site is locally called, is
another relic of hoary antiquity, in the shape of a tumulus, which,
when opened, laid bare a kistvaen, or sepulchral chamber, formed of a
great block of granite, weighing nearly five tons, resting on two
upright granite slabs, and enclosing a space about six feet square.
This method of burial is well known throughout the old world; such
burial chambers have been found in Greece, and in considerable numbers
in Ireland, where they are primitive Celtic. In the Lundy kistvaen no
skeleton was found, nor anything, indeed, save a small fragment of
pottery, though "there was a rank odour in the cavity, very different
from that of newly turned earth."

There is a logan-stone on the eastern side o