large grey stones. The greater
part were lying in layers; some, however, were seen in confused and
mouldering heaps, and two or three, which had perhaps rolled down from
the rest, lay separately on the floor. "Skulls, madam," said the sexton;
"skulls of the old Danes! Long ago they came pirating into these parts;
and then there chanced a mighty shipwreck, for God was angry with them,
and He sunk them; and their skulls, as they came ashore, were placed here
as a memorial. There were many more when I was young, but now they are
fast disappearing. Some of them must have belonged to strange fellows,
madam. Only see that one; why, the two young gentry can scarcely lift
it!" And, indeed, my brother and myself had entered the Golgotha, and
commenced handling these grim relics of mortality. One enormous skull,
lying in a corner, had fixed our attention, and we had drawn it forth.
Spirit of eld, what a skull was yon!

I still seem to see it, the huge grim thing; many of the others were
large, strikingly so, and appeared fully to justify the old man's
conclusion, that their owners must have been strange fellows; but
compared with this mighty mass of bone they looked small and diminutive,
like those of pigmies; it must have belonged to a giant, one of those red-
haired warriors of whose strength and stature such wondrous tales are
told in the ancient chronicles of the north, and whose grave-hills, when
ransacked, occasionally reveal secrets which fill the minds of puny
moderns with astonishment and awe. Reader, have you ever pored days and
nights over the pages of Snorro?--probably not, for he wrote in a
language which few of the present day understand, and few would be
tempted to read him tamed down by Latin dragomans. A brave old book is
that of Snorro, containing the histories and adventures of old northern
kings and champions, who seemed to have been quite different men, if we
may judge from the feats which they performed, from those of these days.
One of the best of his histories is that which describes the life of
Harald Haardraade, who, after manifold adventures by land and sea, now a
pirate, now a mercenary of the Greek emperor, became king of Norway, and
eventually perished at the battle of Stamford Bridge, whilst engaged in a
gallant onslaught upon England. Now, I have often thought that the old
Kemp, whose mouldering skull in the Golgotha of Hythe my brother and
myself could scarcely lift, must have resembled