Indeed, they are of the most
laborious research. We quote an extract relative to "grinning skulls" as
terrifically interesting:
"The British warriors preserved the bones of their enemies whom they slew;
and Strabo says of the Gauls (who were, as he informs us, far less
uncivilized than the Britons, but still nearly resembled them in their
manners and customs,) that when they return from the field of battle they
bring with them the heads of their enemies fastened to the necks of their
horses, and afterwards place them before the gates of their cities. Many
of them, after being anointed with pitch or turpentine, they preserve in
baskets or chests, and ostentatiously show them to strangers, as a proof
of their valour; not suffering them to be redeemed, even though offered
for them their weight in gold. This account is also confirmed by Diodorus.
Strabo says that Posidonius declared he saw several of their heads near
the gates of some of their towns,--a horrid barbarism, continued at
Temple-bar almost down to the present period."
Lastly, _Speaking and Moving Stones_:
"Girald Cambrensis gives an account of a speaking-stone at St. David's in
Pembrokeshire. 'The next I shall notice is a very singular kind of a
monument, which I believe has never been taken notice of by any
antiquarian. I think I may call it an oracular stone: it rests upon a bed
of rock, where a road plainly appears to have been made, leading to the
hole, which at the entrance is three feet wide, six feet deep, and about
three feet six inches high.
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