This is the case in the instance
of Willey How, which, when explored by Canon Greenwell, was found, in
spite of its size and the enormous care evidently bestowed upon its
construction, to be merely a cenotaph. A grave there was, sunk more than
twelve feet deep in the chalk rock; but no corporeal tenant had ever
occupied it.
This fact is still more clearly shown in the remarkable case mentioned by
Professor Boyd Dawkins. A barrow called Bryn-yr-Ellyllon (Fairy-hill),
near Mold, was said to be haunted by a ghost clad in golden armour which
had been seen to enter it. The barrow was opened in the year 1832, and was
found to contain the skeleton of a man wearing a golden corselet of
Etruscan workmanship.
The same may be said respecting that famous fairy-hill in Ireland, the
Brugh of the Boyne, though Mr. MacRitchie seems to regard it as having
been a dwelling-place. Mr. Coffey in a most careful study appears to me to
have finally settled the question.[A] He speaks of the remains as those of
probably the most remarkable of the pre-Christian cemeteries of Ireland.
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