Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Southern Magazine, Vol. 13: July to December, 1873
One pleasant summer-day we sauntered out in the company of others from the neighborhood of Bramsche, at the foot of the Weser Mountains, to visit this interesting locality. Soon, through forest glade and lane, we reached'the old plantation house Grumfeld, lying embowered amid gigantic oaks. In the enclosure which the domestic buildings surround is of one of the best preserved Hiinengraves in all the Giersfeld. These consist of numbers of formidable blocks of granite, each supported by two pillars or posts, the whole of the shape of a double capital tt, the principal monument being encircled by a series of smaller stones. The children of the family use these stones as benches, and the cattle were resting close to them andwithin the magic circle under the shade of the old oak trees. This scene was suggestive and of itself interesting. The owner of the Grumfeld plantation readily assented to join our party and walk out upon the Giersfeld with us. On the way we spoke of the probable manner in which these huge blocks of stone could have been moved in an age when mechanical ingenuity was dormant and our present appliances unknown. The theory of the Grumfeld possessor was both novel and ingenious. I have often thought about it, he said the giants must have transported these stones during the winter over the snow and ice. On the frozen ground there would be no difficulty in moving them. But, it was rejoined how could the horizontal blocks have been raised upon their posts? Much in the same way. After the posts had been placed over the grave they were buried in snow, and upon an in clined plane, also made of snow, but little additional exertion would have sufficed to drag the impost upon its supports. We had thus speaking gradually reached the confines of the Giersfeld. There lay the graves upon the summits of the gentle hills by hundreds. The view from any of these summits over the city of the dead had something exceedingly melancholy and pathetic. There was a vast churchyard, or in the poetical language of the North, a vast God's acre, a Northern Necropolis. Utterly desolate is the view; the dry brownish heather shed a gloom over all, which was not relieved by the gigantic monuments of funereal gray, overgrown by moss and lichen. Was it the impress of the scene itself? The dense forests which on all sides surround this city of a departed race, though clad in a sweet green, had no effect upon us in lessening this impression; nor was the sun's bright glow, which now and then broke through the gathering summer evening clouds, capable of lending a brighter color to this dreary sight.
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