The father prepared a wonderful
funeral for her. Her body was arranged in silken garments, and then
placed in a golden coffin and buried in a deep grave just outside the
camp, where her spirit was still supposed to haunt the place at
midnight.
On the sea coast a sunken forest existed, while the shore was covered
with granite boulders of many sizes and shapes, and large numbers of
similar stones were ploughed up in the fields, all apparently ice-borne,
and having been carried mostly from Criffel on the Scottish coast, and
the following legend was told here to explain their presence on the
English side of the Solway.
There once lived a giant on Criffel which was on the opposite coast of
the Solway Firth, while another giant lived on Skiddaw, one of the
highest mountains in Cumberland. For a time they lived in peace and
quietness, but an occasion came when they quarrelled. Then they took up
stones and hurled them at each other; but many of them fell short, and
hence they are now widely scattered.
[Illustration: WORDSWORTH'S BIRTHPLACE, COCKERMOUTH.]
We now returned towards the hills and followed what was once a Roman
road through a level country to Cockermouth, passing on our way through
the colliery village of Dearham, a name meaning the "home of wild
animals"; but we saw nothing wilder than a few colliers.
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