Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/129

Rh in Latin it is cista, and in our own language has been softened into chest, by a process similar to that of modern Italian, and observable in many other of our words; as in kirch, or kirk, which has become church. In the lowlands of Scotland it is still pronounced kist, and retains in common use its original meaning of a burial chest. Among old-fashioned families in the lowlands of Scotland, that part of a funeral which precedes the removal of the body from the house is a religious service, and is still called in remote districts the kistening, or kisting, and in other places the chesting, or the coffining.

But of old, the kisting took place in the grave-yard, and not in the house, for coffins, in our sense of them, were not used. The body, wrapped in the shroud or grave-clothes, but not enclosed in any coffin, was carried forth upon feretrum or bier, as is described in the history of the son of the widow of Nain (Luke vii. 11—15); and when it had arrived at the cave or place of sepulture, it was there kisted, or kistined, that is, placed in a recess or receptacle hewn from the rock, or in a constructed kistvaen: and after the interment was completed, and "the dead was buried out of sight," then some monument which as meant to be seen, might be raised at will. Urn- burial, which presupposes burning the dead, probably only prevailed in Britain while the Romans ruled: it does not seem to have been customary here before their arrival, nor after the population had become Christian: instances have, it is said, been discovered where Saxon Christians in England must have been interred by burning; yet as a general rule, when a nation has become Christian, burning the dead has ceased. The kistvaens in Pytchley were therefore probably either prior to Roman dates, or subsequent to the prevailing of Christianity.

Kistvaen simply means stone coffin: vaen being, as it appears, merely the softened pronunciation of maen (stone), a Welch word which does not exist, in that form at least, in Irish or Gaelic: although the word kistvaen is in common use through Scotland to signify the rude receptacles made of several rough stones, which are there commonly found under cairns or heaps of loose stones. Those which (like Kits Cotty House in Kent) are above ground and in the nature of monuments, are in Scotland called clach or clachan, and not kistvaens. The Gaelic word used for ordinary coffins is cobhain (pronounced coffain), and it is usually restricted to a wooden chest or ark;