Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 9.djvu/296

 226 EXCAVATIONS NEAR THE FLEAM DYKE, CAMBEIDGESHIRE. them) and the narratives from which the abstract of St. Adal- bert's life, given above, is taken — as, for instance, that in the panels containing subjects relating to his journe}^ into Prussia, three, and not two, companions are always repre- sented. This may have been caused either by a certain carelessness, not uncommon in such cases, or by the artist's having followed some later writer, who had narrated these events in a rather different manner. The wide borders which surround each valve contain within the scrolls of foliage, figures of Uons, stags, nonde- script monsters ; birds and dragons, peacocks, cranes, centaurs, dogs ; men hunting with bows and arrows and horns, a man killing a lion, &c., designed with much spirit and life, and ver}^ fairly modelled, except as regards the human figures. The whole effect is extremely rich and good, and much invention is shown in the varied forms of the foliage : this is in part imitative of the vine, but more generally of an entirely conventional character. In a subsequent number of the Journal the subject will be completed by a review of the opinions put forth by native writers as to the origin of these doors, and by an attempt to arrive at a correct conclusion on that point. ALEX. XESBITT. ACCOUNT OF EXCAVATIONS NEAE THE FLEAM DYKE, CAMBRIDGESHIEE, APEIL, 1852. Matlow, or Muttilow Hill, as it is more frequently called in the neighbourhood, although it is marked on the County Maps by the former appellation, is a large and well known tumulus in Cambridgeshire, which in its close vicinity to the remarkable earthwork. Fleam Dyke, has attracted consider- able notice in that locality, especially from the tradition belonging to it, that it contained a gold coach, which is, or I should rather now say has, been imphcitly believed, among the labouring classes thereabouts for many years ; for the examination, of which I now detail the results, made under my own superintendence, has for ever extinguished the interesting legend. It is hardly to be supposed that with such unusual