And though we are bare in
historical particulars of such obsequies in this island, or
that the Saxons, Jutes, and Angles burnt their dead,
yet came they from parts where 'twas of ancient practice;
the Germans using it, from whom they were descended.
And even in Jutland and Sleswick in Anglia Cymbrica,
urns with bones were found not many years before us.
But the Danish and northern nations have raised an
era or point of compute from their custom of burning
their dead: some deriving it from Unguinus, some from
Frotho the great, who ordained by law, that princes and
chief commanders should be committed unto the fire,
though the common sort had the common grave inter-
ment. So Starkatterus, that old hero, was burnt, and
Ringo royally burnt the body of Harold the king slain
by him.
What time this custom generally expired in that na-
tion, we discern no assured period; whether it ceased
before Christianity, or upon their conversion, by Aus-
gurius the Gaul, in the time of Ludovicus Pius, the son
of Charles the Great, according to good computes; or
whether it might not be used by some persons, while
for an hundred and eighty years Paganism and Christi-
anity were promiscuously embraced among them, there
is no assured conclusion.
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