The Hill of the Dragon: Anglo-Saxon Burial Mounds in Literature and Archaeology

Author(s): Hilda R. Ellis Davidson

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Folklore, Vol. 61, No. 4 (Dec., 1950), pp. 169-185
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1256884 .
Accessed: 29/04/2012 11:38
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Folklore Enterprises, Ltd. and Taylor & Francis, Ltd. are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and
extend access to Folklore.

http://www.jstor.org

*fol

kF

lore

TRANSACTIONS OF THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY

VOL. LXI]

DECEMBER,

[No. 4

1950

THE HILL OF THE DRAGON1

ANGLO-SAXON

BURIAL

MOUNDS

IN LITERATURE

AND ARCHAEOLOGY

BY HILDA R. ELLIS DAVIDSON

A Paper read beforea meetingof the Society on October

I9th, 1949
THE idea of raising an imposing mound of earth to guard the bones or
ashes of the dead is one which has roots deep in antiquity. " Man " said
Sir Thomas Browne " is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous
in the grave "; and when the Anglo-Saxons raised howes over the
graves of dead kings and warriors they were following a tradition long
familiar in Northern Europe. They themselves were aware of the
nobility of which Browne wrote, as the words from Beowulf prove:
" Bid the famous warriors build a shining mound after the funeral fire,
upon a headland by the sea. It shall tower high upon Whale's Ness as a
memorial to my people; so that the seafarers in after days shall name it
the mound of Beowulf, as they urge their steep ships from afar over the
misty deep " (2802-8).
But the Anglo-Saxon burial mound was more than an impressive symbol
to preserve a hero's memory; and if the evidence of archaeology, ancient
custom and early literature is pieced together it is possible to attempt to
discover something of the significance of the burial mound in the minds of
those who raised it.
The findings of archaeology make it certain that in Anglo-Saxon times
the grave beneath the large impressive grave-mound was not the common
lot. The majority of graves were arranged in cemeteries, and could not
have been marked by more than a small heap of earth above. But to this
rule there are notable exceptions. Sometimes a number of men, women
and children, apparently the members of an ordinary village community,
have been found buried in a large tumulus of an earlier period, as at
1 I am greatly indebted to Mrs.Chadwickfor valuablediscussionand suggestions
on the
subject of mounds and dragons, and to Mr. R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford for
helpful criticism of this paper.
N

169

170

The Hill of the Dragon

White-horse Hill, Berkshire,2 which held 46 graves, or Uncleby, Yorkshire,3 which had 68. It seems likely that the Anglo-Saxons were
attracted by the sanctity of an existing mound of impressive proportions
and preferred that their dead should rest in what in a pagan sense was
hallowed ground ; for they were careful not to disturb the original burial.
These were simple folk, but in the large mounds raised in the AngloSaxon period over a single grave there is evidence for considerable
funeral pomp in preparing a memorial for some person of importance.
In many cases we are unfortunately dealing with early and unscientific
records which must be treated with caution, but nevertheless there is a
rich fund of material at our disposal.
A simple example is the impressive barrow built on the Roman site at
Lowbury Hill, Berkshire.4 Here an elderly warrior lay in an oval grave
under the mound, with his spear beside him, his sword in its scabbard
with the hilt on his breast, his shield apparently fallen across his knees,
his knife in his hand and a beautiful hanging bowl tilted against the side
of the grave over a comb in a leather case. His buckle and the bone
fastener of his cloak and traces of his woven clothes could be recognised.
A more elaborate burial was that in the famous Taplow Barrow in
Buckinghamshire.5 The mound, 80oft. in diameter and still 15 ft. high in
1883, stood in the churchyard, towering over the later graves. A yew
tree had at some time been planted on its flat top, and this collapsed into
the trench half-way through the excavation, which partly accounts for
the confused accounts of objects in the burial chamber. However we know
enough to form a vivid picture of a man interred in a rectangular gravechamber lined with stout planks, who was richly dressed, with a cloak
decorated with gold braid caught by a clasp at his shoulder. He had a
sword and knife, a long spear placed above the chamber, two shields and
possibly other weapons, while in the centre was a large bronze pan
holding two glass beakers, two wooden cups and two drinking horns.
There was also a bronze bowl of Coptic workmanship, two small buckets
and fragments of a cauldron; and at the foot of the grave a set of playing
pieces and what we now know to have been a small harp.
A grave on very similar lines was that at Broomfield, Essex." This
held a fine sword and other weapons, and again two glass vessels, two
Crania Brittania, II, pl. 51.
3 Proc. Soc. Antiq. XXIV,
p. 146f.

* The Romano-British Site on Lowbury Hill, D. Atkinson, Univ. College Reading,

1916.
6

Vict. County Hist. Bucks. I. p. I99 gives full references.

8 Vict. Count. Hist. Essex. I. p. 320 gives full references.

The Hill of the Dragon

I7
pairs of wooden cups and two horns were placed in a large metal vessel.
Unfortunately part of the grave was destroyed before excavation began.
But the third of the great Anglo-Saxon barrows, that at Sutton Hoo,7
provides us with a grave of royal proportions unspoiled by plunderers or
unskilled excavators. This mound belonged to a group of eleven on the
heath above the sea at Woodbridge, Suffolk. A ship had been lowered
into the grave like a coffin and a burial chamber of wood built on its
deck. This held weapons, including sword, knife, many spears and
angons, axe, elaborate helmet and shield and coat of ring-mail ; ornaments
of magnificent workmanship, including jewelled clasps, purse-mount
and great gold buckle; and plentiful provision for a feast in the form of
two drinking-horns, (one a gigantic auroch's horn holding about six
quarts),8 gourd cups, many dishes, cups and spoons of silver, bowls of
both native and foreign workmanship, cauldrons and buckets. There
was a little six-stringed harp, whose reconstruction is one of the triumphs
of Anglo-Saxon archaeology,9 and two objects which may denote the
royal standing of the man for whom the mound was raised : a whetstone
which suggests a sceptre, and an iron object with the fine figure of an
adult stag at its crest which was probably a royal standard.
Two important problems raised by this grave are the absence of a body
and the choice of a ship to hold the treasure, and neither is an isolated
one. At Broomfield also no trace of a body was found, but here it is impossible to establish facts. But two smaller mounds have been claimed
by their excavators to cover empty graves. One near Salisbury10 held
weapons, buckles and a late Roman pan, but no traces of bones or indication where they could have lain, and a second even more convincing
example comes from Bourne Park, Canterbury."1 Here two mounds
contained skeletons, but the grave under the third, which was filled with
mould which preserved the contents well, held only a bucket, some iron,
including a shield-boss, a copper bowl leaning against the wall and a disc
like a playing counter. The grave had not been disturbed.
Broggerl2 claimed to have excavated an empty barrow in Norway, and
suggested the name Farmanns Haug indicated a memorial to a man who
died abroad. But here there was no gravechamber or goods,
only what
appeared to be a wooden stretcher or bier near the centre. One of the
7
Hoo Ship-Burial, Brit. Mus. 1947.
8 Sutton
am indebted to the staff of the

B. M. for this information.

I
yet unpublished.
9 Arch. News Letter, April 1948, p. Ii.
10 Colt-Hoare, Ancient Wiltshire, II, p. 26f.
11 Arch. Journ. I, p. 253f.
12 Aarb.
f. nord. Oldkyn, 1921. p. 105f.

The pieces are as

The Hill of the Dragon

172

great mounds at Jelling in Denmark13 seems to have been a memorial

of the same kind ; it held no real gravechamber but a framework of wood
which was propped up with turf and could never have stood alone. The
other mound at Jelling held a gravechamber with space for two bodies,
but it would seem that these had been removed together with most of the
gravegoods through a hole made into the mound. The most likely
explanation seems to be that the bodies of the king and queen were
removed to be given Christian burial.
At Sutton Hoo however we have a grave royally equipped, never
disturbed since the mound was closed, where careful and scientific search
has failed to find trace of a body or place where it had lain. Mr. BruceMitfordl4 suggests it was a memorial to ZE~elhere, probably the last pagan
king of East Anglia, whose body might well have been lost at the retreat
at the river Winwwedwhere many were drowned; and if this were so the
grave, like those at Jelling, would mark the end of a pagan epoch. But
the question of the pagan cenotaph is one on which the last word has by
no means been said.
The ship in the mound has many Scandinavian parallels, of which the
royal graves at Vendel and Valsjarde in Sweden, Oseberg and Gokstad
in Norway and Ladby in Denmark are the most striking examples. In
these tombs men (and at Oseberg a woman) were buried with rich possessions, usually with sacrificed animals and possibly human beings also,
in sea-going vessels or smaller boats. Ship-funeral was regarded as predominantly Scandinavian, yet the Sutton Hoo grave, dated at about 650,
is as early as any dateable Scandinavian examples. Nor is it an isolated
example. A ship 48 ft. in length was buried under a tumulus on Snape
Common, near Aldeborough,15 with a few grave-goods which indicated the
early Anglo-Saxon period, and which seems to have stood in a cremation
cemetery, though the accounts are not very clear. There was also an
18 ft. boat in one of the smaller Sutton Hoo mounds, but this had been
plundered.
The problem of cremation must also be included in a survey of AngloSaxon burial mounds. The Christian church condemned it, but there was
time for a great number of the Anglo-Saxon dead to be burned on the
pyre before the practice was abandoned. Most cremation graves are on a
small scale in the cemeteries, but in the Asthall barrow16 in Oxfordshire
a fine mound, 55 ft. in diameter, stood on a ridge. It was surrounded by a
13

14

Antiquity,

1948, p. I9of.

See p. 175 below.

Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial, op. cit., p. 42f.

15 Vict. Count. Hist. Suffolk, I, p. 326f, gives full references.
16Antiq. Journ. IV, 1924, P. 113f.

The Hill of the Dragon

173

dry-stone wall, and contained a large-scale cremation burial. The floor

of the mound was lined with yellow clay brought from a distance, and on
it the funeral pyre had stood. Large pieces of timber had burned to a
charred mass, and burned bones, human and animal, and remains of
bronze, silver, pottery, playing pieces, a bowl and a belt were identified,
all having been subjected to intense heat. Leeds believed the remains
were those of a woman, and the ornament discernible suggested a seventhcentury date, which would make the barrow practically contemporary
with the Sutton Hoo grave. A small barrow at Sutton Hoo also contained
burnt bones, which were placed on a wooden tray with an axe, a Roman
lamp lid and marble plaque"17; and the fact that unburnt grave-goods
could be deposited with cremated remains is shown by a grave from
Coombe, Kent,1s where the bones lay in a copper bowl covered with a
cloth, and two swords, also wrapped in cloth, a spearhead, a bead and a
pendant beside them.
Thus archaeological evidence from the time when burial mounds were
still raised by the Anglo-Saxons is rich and varied. Elaborate funeral
rites, including cremation and ship-burial, were still practised at the end
of the pagan period, and weapons, personal possessions, cups and dishes
were carefully arranged in the grave. The objects were often of considerable beauty and value, though they might be old and worn and
repaired, as were the shield, great hanging bowl, and other pieces from
Sutton Hoo. In the richest graves some kind of definite pattern in the
arrangement of the objects can be worked out, and there are interesting
parallels between them. There are also suggestions of funeral ritual.
The Bourne Park grave had little recesses at the corners
containing seed
and the bones of mice (perhaps attracted by it),
recalling prohibitions
in the Anglo-Saxon penitentials against burning seed near the
dead,19 and
other examples from the cemeteries . In the Sutton Hoo
grave an oval
clay basin above the roof of the burial chamber suggests libations of some
kind before the mound was closed,20 but to this I know no
parallel in this
period.
Only a small number of mounds of any size have survived into our
time, but we gain some idea of how many have been lost from the work
of Kemble on Anglo-Saxon boundary charters.21 In the Codex
Diplo7 From information in a letter from Mr. Maynard, Curator of the Ipswich
Museum.
18 Akerman, Pagan
Saxendomn,p. 47.
19 B.
Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, Penit. Theod. Arch.

Canter. 15. Confess. Eegbert. Arch. Ebor. 32.

20
Antiquity, 1940, p. 12.
21 Arch. Journ. XIV,
1857, P. II9f.

174

The Hill of the Dragon

maticus he found 150 instances of barrows used as landmarks along the

edge of an estate. In some cases where only the words beorh or hlaw or
the expression " heathen burial place " is used they might be pre-Saxon
mounds, but often they are identified by the names of the men laid in
them. Evidence from Norway collected by Taranger22and others throws
new light on the custom of recording the names of men in their mounds
when defining the limits of an estate. In the Norse sagas a king claiming
his inheritance might do so by sitting on his father's burial mound, and
in some cases the king dispensed his royal power while sitting upon a
grave-mound.23 These incidents, taken together with passages from the
laws, show that it was common for the important family burial places to
stand not far from the house, and of special importance was the mound
of the founder of the family or first owner of the land, the odalshaugr.
It was this mound, before written charters existed, which proved the
right of a man to hold the land, if he could give the name of the man buried
there and trace his descent from him. Magnus Olsen24 has published a
letter telling of an old man whom the writer knew in boyhood. The old
man (then over go) used to tell him that he was 13th or 14th in direct line
of descent from a Viking called Odd Skarnaev who was laid in a mound
near his farm. While fishing he used to sing a verse (unfortunately now
forgotten) about this Odd, and could tell the story of his death in a
desperate fight. So long a survival of the tradition of tracing one's
genealogy from the man in the mound shows how powerful it must once
have been, and it throws new light on the preoccupation with death and
burial in some of the Old Norse poems. The strange poem Ynglingatal,
which gives a list of kings of Norway, telling how each met his death and
where he was buried, now becomes comprehensible, for the poet is bent on
proving that his patron, King Ragnald, with whom the list ends, had as
good a claim to the throne of Norway as Harald Fairhair himself, and he
does this by reciting his ancestors and giving their burial places. In
certain places a king who won new territory might require more than one
odalshaugr, to prove his right to separate regions, and Taranger suggests
this as a possible explanation of such cenotaphs as the Farmanns barrow.
It seems likely, from the frequent references in the boundary charters,
that the same custom prevailed among the Anglo-Saxons at one time.
Two instances from the Book of Llandaff25 where the Welsh king makes
"
22 A.
Taranger, Om Kongevalg i Norge i sagatiden," Norsk Hist. Tidsskrift 5,
Raekke 9, 1934, P. IIof. K. Lehmann " Grabhiigel und K6nigshiigel in nord.
Heidenzeit
23

", Zeit. f. deutsch Phil.

42, 1910,

p. If.

I have discussed these passages in The Road to Hel (H. R. Ellis), p. I05f.

Mdl og Minne, 1919, p. 120.

25 Liber Landauensis,
(L. J. Rhys,

24

ILlandovery,

1840),

pp. 141, 156.

The Hill of the Dragon

175

over land to the church while sitting or lying on the tomb of a former king
certainly suggests something like it in Wales.
There is also a good deal of evidence for local assemblies in England
meeting upon mounds.26 Many of the pre-Domesday hundreds certainly
assembled out-of-doors, and in some cases the mounds on which they sat
are known to be tumuli. We know too that some Anglo-Saxon barrows,
like that at Taplow, had flat tops, and sometimes they apparently had
stones upon them, like mounds in Sweden27 which are known to have been
used for public assemblies.
The importance of the Anglo-Saxon burial mound in early society is also
shown by the sanctity with which it continued to be invested in Christian
times. Early Christian churches were sometimes built beside or even over
a burial mound. At Taplow the mound stands in the old churchyard.
Under Fimber church28 in Yorkshire Mortimer discovered that an earlier
building, destroyed by fire, had stood upon an artificial mound containing
skeletons which was almost certainly a barrow. Again at Ludlow29 the
parish church occupied the site of a former tumulus. Leland tells us that
in I199 the townsmen decided to clear away the large barrow which stood
there and extend the church, and they found within it three sepulchral
deposits (mausolea lapidea) which were declared to be those of the father,
mother and uncle of St. Brandon. Such apparent credulity might be
explained by the tradition of a Celtic monastery on the site.
There must have been many other places where early churches were
built over ancient mounds or cemeteries, and we know of many on the
continent. One of the most interesting is that of Jelling in Denmark,30
the royal burial place before the country became Christian. Here two
great barrows stand with a church of medieval date between them. It
was formerly believed that Gorm, the last pagan king, was buried in one
and his queen Thyra in the other. The northern barrow was the one
mentioned above which held the burial chamber from which the bodies
appear to have been removed not long after burial; probably both the
king and queen rested in that howe, which was planned under Gorm, and
which proves to have formed part of a great triangular sanctuary,
26

G. L. Gomme, Prim. Folk-Moots. W. Johnson, Folk-Memory, ch. 8.

Lindquist. Uppsala H6gar (Stockholm, 1936), esp. p. io f. Kemble quotes
references to stones from his article on the Codex, op. cit. p. 130.
28 J. R. Mortimer, Forty Years Researches in the British and Saxon Burial
Mounds of East Yorkshire, p. 189 f.
29 T. Wright, History of Ludlow, 1852,
p. 13 f. Leland, Collectanea, III, p. 407.
"
30 E. Dyggve.
Jelling Kongehoje ", Fra Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark, 1943,
27

(Copenhagen)

p. 19 f. and Acta Archael.

xI II, 1942, p. 65 f.

Full details

of the

work on Jelling will ultimately be published. I am indebted to Dr. Dyggve for

information about the discovery of the original church.

176

The Hill of the Dragon

marked out by upright " bauta " stones. Many of the stones may still
be seen, and the lines, planned with mathematical exactitude, made out ;
it would be natural to assign such a grouping of stones to a far earlier
date, had we not archaeological proof that these were erected in the
tenth century A.D. The sanctuary was later remodelled, and a second
mound built about thirty years after the first, across the apex of the
triangle. It contained the rough model of a wooden burial chamber
referred to earlier, and may have been erected by Gorm's son Harald
when he rejected heathenism, as a substitute for his own burial mound;
the famous runic stone on the site with its grandiloquent inscription
praising him as the converter of Denmark supports this view. Soon after
this, the first Christian church was built along the central line of the old
sanctuary, and its foundations have been recently discovered by Dyggve
beneath the east end of the present church. The history of Jelling
shows how imposing a sanctuary could be built round a burial mound at
the close of the heathen period, and may prove important for our understanding of Sutton Hoo, similarly erected at a time of transition from
one faith to another; it shows too how what was probably the earliest
Danish church was placed in the centre of the old sanctuary.
Another proof of the sanctity of burial mounds is shown by the fact that
saints might choose them for dwelling-places. A clear indication of this is
given by the Anglo-Saxon Life of St. Guolac, written in Latin in the
eighth century by Felix of Croyland and later translated into the native
language. After his conversion Guolac spent some time in the Celtic
monastery at Repton and then determined to retire into the wilderness
and discovered an obscure island in the Cambridgeshire fens. Several
had tried to dwell there but been forced to leave " on account of the
dwelling of the accursed spirits ", but Gublac resolved to settle there.
We are told :
" There was on the island a great mound (hlaw in the A.S. version)
raised upon the earth, which in former times men had dug into and broken
open in hope of wealth. On one side of the mound a hollow had been
made like a great cistern, and in the hollow the holy man Gublac began to
build himself a house as soon as he arrived." (III).
Thus he actually dwelt upon a burial mound, and here he had to defend
himself against certain terrible creatures, the " accursed spirits " whose
appearance is given at some length:
" They had great heads, long necks and lean faces; they had filthy
squalid beards, rough ears, distorted countenances, fierce eyes and foul
mouths; their teeth were like the teeth of horses, their throats were

:4Q

THE ANGLO-SAXON DRAGON ON THE SUTTON

Hoo. SH

By courtesy of the Oxford University Press

Photograph by the British Museum

Ic

x IM/ ~
-:

_.?i-

:-i4
W*:?
400i _i-i:i
i~ili

vs:
AAW*A*,

'0'j::/01

::wmm
PI,-

THE ROMANO-BRITISH DRAGON ON THE HELMET RECOVERED FROM THE

By courtesy of the Journal of Roman Studies

Photograph by the British Museum

The Hill of the Dragon

I77

filled with flame and they had grating voices; they had crooked shanks,
knee joints bent backwards and toes back to front ;31 their voices were
hoarse and they came with such an immoderate din and such immeasurable
horror that it seemed to him that all between heaven and earth resounded
with their fearful noise " (IV).
Something in this picture may be due to the conventional attributes of
devils from Hell, but I believe something also is due to the pagan tradition
of the dead in the grave-mound, and that these creatures are its inhabitants; it would then not be surprising to find, as we do later, that they
are heard by Gu1lac speaking Welsh, since the inhabitants of an ancient
burial mound might be expected to use the language of the earlier race.
It is interesting to find, moreover, that in spite of Gu6lac's sufferings he
is much envied, and a priest actually tries to kill him so that he can
dwell in the mound in his stead. There seems little doubt that a man
who could keep his place upon the mound would be held in reverence and
expected to possess special powers ; that he would in fact be the Christian
successor of those pagan seers who sat upon mounds for inspiration.
Finally we may turn to Anglo-Saxon poetry for information about the
burial mound, for this should prove the richest of sources. We are unfortunate that such Anglo-Saxon secular poetry as we possess was only
written down in its present form about four centuries after Christianity
came to Kent, so that there cannot be as much direct evidence about preChristian beliefs as in Old Norse literature. But we are fortunate on the
other hand that the longest and greatest of the poems, Beowulf, has much
to say on the subject of funeral customs and burial mounds. Also we
know that this poem is far older than the date of its manuscript, and likely
to be of eighth century date or even earlier.
The first of the funeral ceremonies mentioned in the poem is the account
of the dead Scyld, founder of the Danish dynasty, being sent out to sea in
a ship loaded with treasure and arms. Although no mound is mentioned,
it is worth noticing because it might well be taken as a symbolic interpretation of the ship-burials in Scandinavia and Anglo-Saxon England, an
explanation of the custom of lowering the ship into the mound and loading
it with riches :
" Then they laid their dear king, the famous treasure-giver, in the
bosom of the ship, beside the mast. Many treasures and adornments had
been brought there from far-distant lands. Never have I heard of a
vessel more splendidly adorned with swords and mail-coats, the weapons
of war and the raiment of battle. An abundance of treasures lay in its
31Doubtful :
plantis aversis in the Lat. original.

178

The Hill of the Dragon

bosom (or 'on the king's bosom ') which were to make the distant
Moreover above his
journey with him into the domain of the sea...
head they placed aloft a golden standard; then they gave him to the sea
to carry, committed him to the ocean. Their spirits were gloomy and
their hearts full of sorrow. Those who rule in the hall, heroes under
heaven, cannot say in truth who received that cargo." (34-52).
We have other accounts of dead or dying kings sent out to sea, from
Old Norse literature, and Balder himself made such a voyage.32 This,
however, is the most detailed account, and the most poetic and moving.
The question of how far actual practices and how far literary tradition
has prompted such accounts is a very difficult one, but certainly our
increased knowledge about Anglo-Saxon ship-burial must invest it with
new interest.
This is not the only funeral treasure mentioned in Beowulf. After the
Finnsburh battle it is " before the mound " that the funeral pyre for the
slain men blazes up, enriched with helmets and mail-coats and perhaps
with gold from the treasure-hoard also, but we learn nothing of how the
ashes are buried. (II120). The next treasure has lain long in the earth:
it is that watched over by the dragon which caused Beowulf's death. To
the Anglo-Saxon poets there is little doubt that a burial-mound containing treasure was " the hill of the dragon ". It is so stated in the Cottonian
Gnomic verses : " The dragon's place is on the howe, ancient, exulting in
treasure." The treasure over which Beowulf's dragon exults is described
when Wulfstan enters the mound:
" .... precious treasures, glittering gold lying upon the earth, a wondrous
thing upon the wall. He saw the den of the serpent, the ancient nightflier, wherein stood drinking-cups, goblets of men of long ago, lacking the
polisher and robbed of their gems. There was many a helmet old and
likewise standing high
rusty, many coiled rings cunningly twisted...
of
most
wondrous handiwork,
a
all
of
saw
banner
he
the
hoard
above
gold,
a
shone
so
that he could see the
from
it
and
skilled
craft,
light
wrought by
the
and
on
floor clearly
gaze freely
gems." (2757-71).
In another passage there is mention of " drinking cups and beakers,
dishes and precious swords, all rusty and eaten away " (3047-9) and the
messenger's speech has allusions to ornaments to grace a maiden's neck.
(3016-7.) This is evidently a description of an ideal treasure-hoard of
vast proportions, but it will be seen that the constituents-swords,
helmets, drinking-cups, dishes and ornaments and the gold standard
towering over all-are just such as did make up the contents of rich
32See H. R. Ellis, The Road to Hel, pp. 41-50.

The Hill of the Dragon

179

Anglo-Saxon graves. It is not of course presented to us as a treasure of

Beowulf's time, but is said to have lain in the lap of earth for a thousand
winters; however it would be natural for the poet to picture it in the
form familiar to him from the rich heathen graves of his own land. The
mound itself on the other hand seems to be deliberately modelled on a
passage grave of the megalithic period, since it has " an arch of stone
standing " and Beowulf " gazed upon the work of giants, seeing how the
long-enduring earth-hall held within it the stone arches, firm upon upright
stones." (2717-2719).33
In the picture of the inhabitant of this mound more than one tradition
seems to have mingled, but the Anglo-Saxon poet appears to have very
definite ideas as to what a dragon was like. The creature is a fire-dragon,
"a bright and horrible monster ", " grisly-bright and scorched with
flame "; (3041) it spits out deadly fumes, and its attacks on the Geats
may be described as incendiary ones:
" Then did the visitant spit forth embers and burn up the bright
dwellings; that flaming ray wrought mischief to men, for the enemy
flying through the air would leave nothing alive ... he had encompassed
the people of the land with burning, with flame and fire." (2312-22).
Beowulf tries to protect himself with a non-inflammable shield, which,
however, proves less effective than he had hoped. (2337 f. 2570 f.). The
dragon was reckoned by the Geats to be 50 ft. long (3042) when they saw it
after death (the size of a large sperm whale), and it had some of the
characteristics of a serpent, for the term hring-bogan (coiled into rings) is
used of it, (2561) and the word orm (serpent) as often as draca. But it is
definitely a winged creature, the " far-flier " and " night-flier " : " it had
been wont to delight in the air in the night hours and come down again to
seek its den." (3043-5). It had also powerful teeth, with which it dealt
Beowulf his death wound. Above all it is the guardian of the burial
mound:
" the smooth malicious dragon, who seeks out mounds all afire, and
flies by night wrapped in flame ; he is greatly feared by the land-dwellers.
It is his lot to seek out the hoard in the earth; ancient in years, he
mounts guard over the heathen gold, yet he is not one whit the better for
it." (2272-77).
There are many carvings on wood and stone from Scandinavia and
some from Viking England showing dragons, a particular favourite being
Sigurd's dragon Fafnir; but there seems to be no representation of the
53

Keiller and Piggott " Chambered Tomb in Beowulf", Antiquity, 1939, p. 36o,

suggest the account is based on chamberedtombs of Ireland or Scotland.

I80

The Hill of the Dragon

flying dragon in Scandinavian art. There are allusions to flying dragons

in Norse literature, but most of the creatures described in detail are of the
serpent type, twining themselves round rocks or crawling down to the
cliff to drink, and they are so depicted. But Stjerna's4 claim that there
is no archaeological confirmation of Beowulf's dragon has been proved
incorrect, for there are at least two dragons depicted on objects from
Anglo-Saxon graves which are not snakes. One on a tiny workbox,
probably of seventh-century date, from the cemetery at Burwell35 is of
very great interest because it is the earliest picture we have of the dragon
fight in Teutonic art, and the dragon is shown with four legs and a plump
body. More dramatic confirmation of the Anglo-Saxon poet comes from
the Sutton Hoo shield,36 on which there is a dragon equipped with four
pairs of wings and jaws filled with sharp teeth (Plate X). It is possible that
the creature's prototype may be looked for in Roman art. The Roman
dragons were sea-dragons, and a very fine specimen appears on the
decorated helmet dredged up from the River Wensum near Norwich in
1947 (Plate XI).37 The helmet may have been made in Britain, where thirteen of this type have now been found, and Miss Toynbee has commented
on the unconventional, almost barbaric treatment of the classical seadragon. This dates from about the third century, and towards the end
of the Roman period we have to take into account also the dragon
standard which was taken over by the Roman army from the eastern barbarians. On Trajan's Column some of these are seen approaching with their
dragons, which give the impression that they are inflated by the wind,
like the sleeves used at air-ports. The purple dragon became the emblem
of Caesar and was carried before him by his standard-bearer, and it has
been claimed that the Welsh dragon is derived from this. Here then we
have one possible means by which the eastern conception of the flying
dragon reached Western Europe and may have influenced the picture of
the creature who guarded Anglo-Saxon burial mounds.
This, however, does not explain why the dragon is connected with the
dead. The account in the poem is not entirely clear. First we are told
that the last descendant of a noble family survives with a mighty treasure
to guard. This he places in a great mound :
" All ready on the earth stood the howe, newly built upon the
headland,
U

Stjerna, Essays on Questions connected with the O.E. poem of Beowulf, p. 39.
35T. C. Lethbridge, Recent Excavations in A.S. Cemeteries in Cambridgeshire
and Suffolk, p. 48.
36 Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial (Brit. Mus.
1947), P. 17.
3" J. M. C. Toynbee and R. R. Clarke, " A Roman Decorated Helmet "
Journ.
Roman Stud., 1948, p. 20 f. I am indebted to Miss Toynbee for helpful information
about the dragon in Roman art.

The Hill of the Dragon

181

beside the seashore, secure by its inaccessibility, and into it the guardian
of rings carried such part of the plated gold, the treasure of princes, as
deserved to be hoarded." (2241-46).
Then after he too has died we are told that the " ancient foe of the dawn "
(the dragon) " found the splendour of the hoard left open ", (2271) and
took possession. He brooded over the treasure for 300 years until a man
badly in need of ransom money came upon it by chance and carried off a
cup while the dragon slept. The account suggests that this is a rationalization of the idea (which would be repugnant to a Christian audience)
that the dead man himself became a dragon. It is a familiar idea in Old
Norse literature: Fafnir himself only turned into a dragon when he had
gained possession of Andvari's treasure, whereupon he retired to a lair on
Gnitaheath, which as described in a note to Fafnismil suggests a burial
mound, and in one of the Icelandic Sagas38 several members of a strange
family become dragons and lie on chests of gold behind a waterfall. Very
interesting in this connection is the story of the tomb of Charles Martel
given in several medieval chronicles.39 The Bishop of Orleans dreamed
that Charles was in hell, and his tomb was opened, whereupon a fiery
dragon darted out, leaving the tomb blackened as if burnt up. The story
is found as early as 858, about a century after the incident is said to have
taken place, and is vouched for by the writer, who claims to have known
some of those present.
A more primitive form of this conception may be preserved in the
shape of Ni8hogg, who must have occupied some place in Norse heathen
beliefs about the dead; he is said to devour dead men, and at the close
of the poem V9luspd is described as " A dark dragon flying ", and said
to " bear corpses on his pinions ", but unfortunately there is little information about him. Certainly there must be some connection between
the dragon who so resents interference with his treasure and the dead man
himself, who in many Old Norse stories is said to brood over his treasure
in the mound, and who is also enveloped by fire, as we learn from Grettis
Saga (18) :
" It happened one evening rather late that Grettir was about to
go
home when he saw a great fire shoot up on the headland below
AuSunn's
house. Grettir asked what new sight that might be? Au~unn told him
not to try to find out. ' If something like this were seen in our country '
said Grettir 'folks would say it burned over treasure.' The landowner
replied ' He who looks after that fire is one it will not pay you to be
38

norskfirdinga Saga, III and XX.

"9 See Chadwick, The Heroic Age, p. 127 f.

The Hill of the Dragon

182

inquisitive about.' 'Still I should like to know' said Grettir. 'On the
ness stands a howe ' said Auounn, ' and in the howe was buried Karr the
Old, the father of Thorfinn '."
Grettir afterwards breaks into the howe, fights with the howe-dweller
and carries off a sword. Another description of such fire is given in
Hervarar Saga, (IV) when the heroic girl Herv6r goes to recover her
father's sword from his mound. A poem is quoted in which at dusk fires
are said to shoot up over the island where the burial mounds stand, and
the howes to open. The sword is said to lie under the dead man's
shoulder " wrapped in flame ". Whether any natural phenomenon can
in part account for this connection between fire and the dead is a difficult
question; it seems more likely that poetic symbolism is the basic explanation. Lindqvist40 suggested that the idea was based on the cremation fires, but the connection is rather with inhumation graves; Lewis
Spence41 suggests the fiery dragon is a drought symbol, but this does not
explain his preoccupation with gold. There is no doubt that this is a
widely known and very ancient element in the dragon's make-up, and
Chadwick42 has noted references to " gold-guarding griffins " living in the
far north in Herodotus. Has the glow of treasure, so emphasised in
early poetry, become fire? However, the brightness of the dragon in the
sky must have been very familiar to Anglo-Saxon poets; there is an
almost casual reference in the Finn fragment when the lights of the
attackers draw near: " This is no day from the east, nor does a dragon
fly here "; and in the famous entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for
793 it has become a portent for evil:
" In this year terrible portents came about through Northumbria, and
sorely terrified the people; there were huge lightning flashes and fiery
dragons were seen flying through the air, and immediately great famine
followed these portents."
While we know that the dragon came across Europe from the East, it is
not easy to understand how this complex conception of the fiery guardian
of treasure established itself so firmly in England and Scandinavia, and
became closely connected with the burial mound in literature and art.
One more burial mound must be mentioned, that of the hero Beowulf
himself; and we are given an account of its making. Like all the dead
in the poem except Scyld he is cremated. First wood is brought from all
parts of the kingdom, and then the great pyre " firmly built on the earth,
40
41
42

Forvinnen, 1921, p. 136.

Spence, Minor Traditions of British Mythology, p. 129.
Chadwick, The Heroic Age, p. 127, note.

The Hill of the Dragon

183

hung round with helmets and bright mail-coats " with the prince's body
in the midst. There is a wonderful account of the kindling of the fire,
while all lament;
" Then the liegemen of the Wedera raised a barrow on the cliff, high
and broad, such as might be seen from afar by those who crossed the
waves; in ten days they raised the memorial of the man famed in battle;
they encircled the remains of the burning with a wall, even as the wisest
men could best devise. Within the grave mound they placed rings and
gems, all such adornments as the bold warriors had before taken from
the hoard. They left the treasure of princes for the earth to hold, so that
it still remains as useless to men as it was formerly." (3156-3168).
Many scholars have criticised this account, feeling, as Lindqvist put it
in a recent article,43 that " it could not possible be said to correspond with
actual practice as revealed by archaeology." But it must be remembered
that this is not an antiquarian's account of a prince's funeral, but a poem,
a work of creative imagination above all. The main objection is that some
goods are said to be burnt on the pyre and others buried unburnt, and
Lindqvist suggests that old traditions about cremation ceremonies may
have been pieced together with what the poet knew of great inhumation
burials like Sutton Hoo. It might be answered that the Asthall barrow
shows cremation on a large scale going on in England as late as the
seventh century, and also that cremated remains and unburnt
gravegoods are found together in the Coombe grave and elsewhere.44 But the
real answer to such criticisms is surely that if the poem is read as a whole
and not as a series of isolated passages it becomes clear that this is never
intended to be a normal funeral ceremony. Besides the usual ritual at the
death of a king and hero, the burning of arms and treasures on the
pyre
with him, there is a new factor, since the Geats decide to sacrifice the
great treasure he has won from the dragon and commit it again untouched
to the earth from which it
came.45 They were wise in this, for we are told
that a curse had been laid on it. (3069-75).
If we allow for the fact that this is a poetic account on the heroic level
of the funeral of a mighty prince after his battle with a
dragon, then
surely the description is borne out with surprising faithfulness by what
we know of Anglo-Saxon funeral customs, and
gives us every reason to
believe that we are dealing with old and genuine heathen traditions. The
Sutton Hoo and Beowulf. Antiquity, 1948, p.
i39.
See p. 8 above.
45 The messenger's words
(3010-3015) suggest that some of the treasure was to be
burned but are not entirely conclusive : it may be noticed that he too
emphasises
the unusualness of the occasion.
43
44

184

The Hill of the Dragon

majestic close of the ceremony, when a company of twelve nobles rides

round the completed mound, reciting a dirge over their king, has also the
note of authenticity. There seems no reason to object as Chambersdid
because it does not square in every detail with the recorded funeral of
Attila in Jordanes ;46 the important point being that seized on by
Chadwick,47that there should be an underlying resemblance to the
account of the warriorsriding in a circle round the body of the Hunnish
king and telling of his deeds in funeral dirges. Other accounts of nonChristian funerals in Old Norse literature and various prohibitions48
against Anglo-Saxon clergy indulging in songs and laments at the funeral
feast testify to the importance of the dirge over the dead at the heathen
funeral.
It would seem indeed that the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf brings us
very close to the days when great mounds were raised over the honoured
dead. What we can learn of the burial mound from the evidence of
excavation, from the contents of the great Anglo-Saxongraves, and from
the references in literary records and in early poetry all emphasises its
significance,and its importancein the lives of the people in pre-Christian
times. Archaeology here serves to illuminate the poetry and literature
puts new meaning into archaeology, and while there are many unsolved
problems it is, I believe, by such piecing together of scattered evidence
from different sources that we may hope to draw nearer to an understanding of the thoughts and beliefs of a vanished age.
Note on the resemblancesbetweenAnglo-Saxonburial moundsand
those of the Steppe, contributedby G. N. Naundreq.
The question arises whether there is any relation between the Germanic
grave mounds in Britain and the tumuli of the Pontic steppe. It has
been stated that elements of the Scytho-Sarmatio culture have penetrated from Southern Russia as far as Mecklenburg,Sleswick and the
Danish islands (Cf. M. Ebert, Siidrussland,Reallexikonder Vorgeschichte
XIII, 1919, pp. 74, o10).

On the other hand the Scandinavian Goths who reached the Crimea
might have brought with them their habit of burying the dead, and
continued to do so in the new surroundings. Cultural relations existed
between the Pontic region and Scandinavia after the settlement of the
Goths North of the Black Sea. These early relationswere continuedlater
46 Introd. to Beowulf, p. 124 f.
4 Chadwick, The Heroic Age, p. 53.
48 Bosworth and Toller, Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, under byrgen.

The Hill of the Dragon

185

by the Norman expansion in the Dnieper valley (from the eighth century
onwards).
Rumanian historians and archaeologists speak of Germanic graves in
Eastern Rumania. The Germanic archaeological heritage of Southern
Russia and the Danubian countries has not yet been studied. (Cf.
M. Ebert, Siidrussland im altertum, 1921, 362). The Scytho-Sarmation
tumuli culture may have influenced the Nordic grave mound culture;
on the other hand the Goths and Normans may have mixed their culture
brought from Scandinavia with the Scytho-Sarmation-Greek culture of the
Pontic region.