King William's College, Isle of Man.
_Combs buried with the Dead_ (Vol. ii., pp. 230. 269.).--On reference to
Sir Thomas Browne's _Hydriotaphia_, I find two passages which may supply
the information your correspondent seeks as to the reason for combs being
buried with human remains. In section i., pp. 26, 27. (I quote from the
Edinburgh reprint of 1822, published by Blackwood) the author says:
"In a field of Old Walsingham, not many months past (1658), were digged
up between forty and fifty urns, deposited in a dry and sandy soil, not
a yard deep, not far from one another, not all strickly of one figure,
but most answering these described; some containing two pounds of
bones, distinguishable in skulls, ribs, jaws, thigh-bones, and teeth,
with fresh impressions of their combustion, besides extraneous
substances, like pieces of small boxes, or _combs_, handsomely wrought,
handles of small brass instruments, brazen nippers, and in one some
kind of opale."
And again he says (pp. 36, 37.):
"From exility of bones, thinness of skulls, smallness of teeth, ribs,
and thigh-bones, not improbable that many thereof were persons of minor
age, or women. Confirmable also from things contained in them. In most
were found substances resembling _combs_, plates like boxes, fastened
with iron pins, and handsomely overwrought like the necks or bridges of
musical instruments, long brass plates overwrought like the handles of
neat implements, _brazen nippers to pull away hair_, and in one a kind
of opale, yet maintaining a bluish colour.
"Now that they accustomed to burn or bury with them things wherein they
excelled, delighted, or which were dear unto them, either as farewells
unto all pleasure, or vain apprehension that they might use them in the
other world, is testified by all antiquity."
The instances which he appends relate only to the Pagan period, and he does
not appear to have known that a similar practice prevailed in the sepulture
of Christians--if, indeed, such a custom was general, and not confined to
the particular case mentioned by your correspondent.