Ravensroost wrote:
In her "Standing stones/Gloucestershire", Celia Haddon recounts that, when the Jackbarrow long barrow was destroyed in the nineteenth century, the bones of its 'residents' were reburied in nearby Duntisbourne Abbots churchyard and decorated with a large cross embellished with a quotation from St. John's gospel.
I don't think for one moment any thought goes into what the feelings would have been of the long dead or their beliefs Ravensroost. This modern world only concerns itself with itself with millions of the living being treated in the same indifferent way! No doubt the reburial was done with the best of intentions, but it does seem incongruous that the bones of people who died a few thousand years before Jesus was born should have their bones reburied in a christian burial ground.
Peter Berresford Ellis in his book "The Celts: a history" states "The Celtic idea of immortality was that death was but a changing of place and that life went on with all its forms and goods in another world." But does that include changing to the back of a Cotswold churchyard?
I can't help feeling that they would have been happier left on the top of their Cotswold hill.