[The Danish History<br> Books I-IX by Saxo Grammaticus (Saxo the Learned)]@TWC D-Link book
The Danish History
Books I-IX

BOOK EIGHT
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Moreover, the mounds which men laboriously built up of old on the level ground for the burial of the dead are now covered by a mass of woodland.

Many piles of stones are also to be seen interspersed among the forest glades.

These were once scattered over the whole country, but the peasants carefully gathered the boulders and piled them into a heap that they might not prevent furrows being cut in all directions; for they would sooner sacrifice a little of the land than find the whole of it stubborn.

From this work, done by the toil of the peasants for the easier working of the fields, it is judged that the population in ancient times was greater than the present one, which is satisfied with small fields, and keeps its agriculture within narrower limits than those of the ancient tillage.

Thus the present generation is amazed to behold that it has exchanged a soil which could once produce grain for one only fit to grow acorns, and the plough-handle and the cornstalks for a landscape studded with trees.


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