SICKLES.
SICKLES are the only undoubtedly agricultural implements in bronze with
which we are acquainted in this country. Already in the Stone Period
the cultivation of cereals for food appears to have been practised, and
I have elsewhere[695] pointed out a form of flint instrument which may
possibly have supplied the place of sickles or reaping hooks in those
early times. The rarity of bronze sickles in this country, as compared
with their abundance in some parts of Southern Europe, is, however,
somewhat striking, and may, perhaps, point to a considerably less
cultivation of grain crops in Britain than in countries with a warmer
climate, while the inhabitants were otherwise in much the same stage of
civilisation.
The traditions of the use of bronze sickles survived to a
comparatively late period in Greece and Italy, and Medea is described
by Sophocles[696] as cutting her magic herbs with such instruments
(Χαλκέοισιν ἤμα δρεπάνοις τομάς), and by Ovid[697] as doing it
“curvamine falcis ahenæ.” Elissa is by Virgil[698] represented as using
a bronze sickle for similar purposes—
“Falcibus et messæ ad lunam quæruntur aënis
Pubentes herbæ nigri cum lacte veneni.”
When bronze sickles were used for reaping corn it seems to have been a
common custom merely to cut the ears of corn from off the straw, after
the manner of the Gaulish reaping machine described by Pliny,[699] and
not to cut and carry away straw and ear together from the field. This
practice will probably account for the small size of the sickles which
have come down to us, unless we are to reverse the argument, and derive
the custom of cutting off the ears only from the diminutive size of
the instruments employed for reaping.
Bronze sickles were hafted in different ways, sometimes being fastened
to the handle by a pin, either attached to the stem of the blade or
passing through a hole in it, combined with some system of binding; and
sometimes being provided with a socket into which the haft was driven,
and then secured by a transverse pin or rivet.
The sickles with a socket to receive the handle appear to be peculiar
to Britain and the North of France. The other form occurs over the
greater part of Europe, including Scandinavia, and the blades, as has
been observed by Dr. Keller, are always adapted for use in the right
hand. Dr. Gross, of Neuveville, on the Lake of Bienne, has been so
fortunate as to discover at Mœrigen, the site of one of the ancient
pile-villages on the lake, two or three handles for sickles of this
kind. A figure showing three views of one of these handles has been
published by the Royal Archæological Institute,[700] and is here by
permission reproduced as Fig. 231. This handle is formed of yew,
curiously carved so as to receive the thumb and fingers, and has a
flat place at the end against which the blade was fastened. In this
place there are two grooves to receive the slightly projecting ribs
with which the stem of the sickle-blade is usually strengthened. Dr.
Keller[701] has suggested that the blade of the sickle was made fast to
the handle by means of a kind of ferrule which passed over it, and was
secured in its place by two pins or nails.
The end of the handle forms a ridge, through which are two holes
that would admit a small cord for the suspension of the sickle, and
thus prevent its being lost either on land or water. We find this
sailor-like habit prevailing among the Lake-dwellers in the case of
their flint knives also, the handles of which were often perforated.
There is a remarkable resemblance in character between this handle and
some of those in use among the Esquimaux[702] for their planes and
knives, which are recessed in the same manner for the reception of the
fingers and the thumb.
Some iron sickles, of nearly the same form as those in bronze with
the flat stem, were present in the great Danish find of the Early
Iron Age at Vimose,[703] described by Mr. C. Engelhardt. The chord
of the curved blades is from 6 to 7 inches in length, and one of the
instruments still retained its original wooden handle. This is between
9 and 10 inches long, and is curved at the part intended to receive the
hand. The end is conical, like the head of a screw, and is evidently
thus made in order to give a secure hold to the reaper when drawing the
sickle towards him. Sickles with nearly similar handles were in use in
Smaaland,[704] in the South of Sweden, until recent days.
[Illustration: Fig. 231.—Three views of a handle for a sickle,
Mœrigen.]
Of sickles without a socket but few have been found in Britain, and
those mostly in our Western Counties. In a remarkable hoard found in a
turbary at Edington Burtle,[705] near Glastonbury, Somersetshire, were
four of these flat sickles. One of these had never been finished, but
had been left rough as it came from the mould, into which the metal had
been run through a channel near the point of the sickle. A projection
still marks the place where the jet was broken off. As will be seen
from Fig. 232, this blade is provided with two projecting pins for
the purpose of attaching it to the handle. In this respect it differs
from the sickles of the ordinary continental type, which, when of this
character, have usually but a single knob.
[Illustration: Fig. 232.—Edington Burtle. ½]
Another of the Edington sickles with a single projection is shown in
Fig. 233. This blade is more highly ornamented, and has a rib along the
middle in addition to that along the back, no doubt for the purpose of
increasing stiffness while diminishing weight. Of the other two sickles
found at Edington, one is imperfect and the other much worn. Both are
provided with the two projecting pins.
[Illustration: Fig. 233.—Edington Burtle. ½]
Two other sickles found on Sparkford Hill,[706] also in Somersetshire,
present the same peculiarity. One of these much resembles Fig. 233,
though nearly straight along the back. The other is flat on both faces.
Each has lost its point. A chisel-like tool was found with them.
With the Edington sickles were found a broad fluted penannular
armlet and what may have been a finger-ring of the same pattern, a
plain penannular armlet of square section, part of a light funicular
torque like Fig. 467, part of a ribbon torque like Fig. 469, and four
penannular rings, some of them apparently made from fragments of
torques.
Two other sickles of the same character, each with two projecting pins,
were found in Taunton[707] itself in association with twelve palstaves,
a socketed celt, a hammer (Fig. 214), a fragment of a spear-head, a
double-edged knife, a funicular torque (Fig. 468), a pin (Fig. 451),
some fragments of other pins, and several penannular rings of various
sizes.
[Illustration: Fig. 234.—Thames. ½]
All the objects found at Edington, Sparkford Hill, and Taunton are now
in the museum in Taunton Castle.
A thinner form of flat sickle, if such it be, has been found in Kent.
Among a number of bronze objects which were discovered at Marden,[708]
near Staplehurst, there is a slightly curved blade with a rivet at one
end, which appears to present a sickle-like character. I have not seen
the original, and as it is described as a knife-blade it may prove to
have been one, or possibly, what is of far rarer occurrence, a saw.
Of socketed sickles a few have at different times been dredged up from
the Thames. One of these, found in 1859, is in my own collection, and
is shown in Fig. 234. The blade, which is almost as sharp at the back
as at the edge, is not quite central with the socket, but so placed as
to make the instrument better adapted for use in the right hand than in
the left. The socket tapers considerably, and is closed at the end.
In another sickle found in the Thames, near Bray, Berks[709] (Fig.
235), the socket dies into the blade instead of forming a distinct
feature. A third, found near Windsor, and engraved in the _Proceedings
of the Society of Antiquaries_,[710] closely resembles Fig. 234, but
the end of the socket, instead of being closed, is open. The blade of
this also is sharp on both edges.
One from Stretham Fen, in the Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian
Society (about 5½ inches), is of the same character. It has two
rivet-holes in the socket. Another from Downham Fen (5¾ inches) is
sharp on both edges.
[Illustration: Fig. 235.—Near Bray. ½]
In the Norwich Museum is a sickle of somewhat the same character
as Fig. 235, but the socket instead of being oval is oblong, and
is placed at a less angle to the blade, which in this case also is
double-edged. The socket is 11/16 by 7/16 inch, and has one rivet-hole
through it. The curved knife from Wicken Fen, to be described in the
next chapter, much resembles this Norwich example in outline. Another
sickle from Norfolk[711] was exhibited to the Archæological Institute
in 1851. Mr. Franks has shown me a sketch of another found at Dereham
which has the external edge of the blade extending across the end of
the socket. Both edges of the blade are sharp.
But few sickles have been found in Scotland. That shown in Fig. 236
was found in the Tay,[712] near Errol, Perthshire, in 1840, and has
been described by Dr. J. Alexander Smith. The block, which has been
kindly lent me by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, is engraved
on the scale of two-thirds linear, instead of my usual scale of
one-half. The main difference between this specimen and mine from the
Thames (Fig. 234) consists in the blade being fluted. Another more
rudely made sickle, found at Edengerach,[713] Premnay, Aberdeenshire,
has also been engraved. This has a single central rib along the blade
and no rivet-hole through the socket. Perhaps it is an unfinished
casting.
[Illustration: Fig. 236.—Near Errol, Perthshire. ⅔]
In Sinclair’s “Statistical Account of Scotland”[714] it is stated that
an instrument of this class was found at Ledbeg, Sutherlandshire, and
was pronounced by the Earl of Bristol, then Bishop of Derry, to whom
it was presented, to be a Druidical pruning hook similar to several
found in England.
In Ireland these instruments are much more abundant. Eleven specimens
are mentioned by Wilde[715] as being in the Museum of the Royal Irish
Academy, and there are three in the British Museum, as well as one in
that at Edinburgh.
[Illustration: Fig. 237.—Garvagh, Derry. ½]
That engraved as Fig. 237 is in the collection of Canon Greenwell,
F.R.S., and was found at Garvagh, county Derry. The blade is fluted
somewhat like that of the Tay specimen. In one of those engraved
by Wilde (Fig. 405) it is more highly ornamented. In another the
socket is not closed at the end, but resembles that of the Windsor
example already mentioned. This appears to be the one engraved by
Vallancey[716] who observes that it was “called by the Irish a
Seare,” and that it was used “to cut herbs, acorns, misletoe, &c.” In
another[717] the blade forms a direct continuation of the socket as
in Fig. 238, which is engraved from a specimen in the British Museum,
found near Athlone, county Westmeath.
Vallancey, in his “Collectanea,” has figured another. In the
collection of Mr. J. Holmes is another example of this type. Another
sickle of the same character as Fig. 237, found near Ballygawley,[718]
Tyrone, has also been figured. This specimen is among those in the
British Museum.
A socketed sickle, double-edged, and with a concavity on each side at
the angle between the blade and the socket so deep as to meet and form
a hole, was found in Alderney, and is engraved in the _Archæological
Association Journal_.[719] With it were found socketed celts,
spear-heads, and broken swords and daggers. This may be regarded as a
French rather than an English example.
[Illustration: Fig. 238.—Athlone. ½]
In my own collection is another, from the Seine at Paris, about 7
inches in length along the outer edge of the blade, which extends
past the end of the socket. This still contains a part of the wooden
handle, which has been secured in its place by two rivets, apparently
of bronze. In general outline this sickle is much like Fig. 234, but
the blade is narrower and more curved and the socket more flattened.
In the museum at Amiens is another sickle, in form closely resembling
Fig. 234, but with a loop at the back of the socket. M. Chantre in his
magnificent work, “L’Age du Bronze,” does not specify this socketed
type, though he divides the form without socket into five different
varieties. The socketed form appears to be quite unknown in the South
of France, as it also is in Switzerland.
These three are the only instances I can cite of socketed sickles
having been found outside the British Isles, so that this type of
instrument appears to be peculiarly our own. The existence of a socket
shows that the form does not belong to an early period in the Bronze
Age, and the same is to be inferred from the character of the other
bronze objects with which the Alderney sickle was found associated.
Inasmuch as the continental forms are as a rule different from the
British, and as they are, moreover, well known, it will suffice
to indicate some few of the works in which descriptions of them
will be found. Some from Camenz, in Saxony, have been engraved in
illustration of a paper by myself in the _Proceedings of the Society of
Antiquaries_.[720]
Others from Germany, some of which are said to have Roman numerals upon
them, have been figured by Lindenschmit.[721]
Examples from Italy have been given by Strobel,[722] Gastaldi,[723]
Lindenschmit,[724] and others.
They have been found in great abundance in some of the settlements
on the lakes of Switzerland and Savoy. It has been thought that the
Lake-dwellers did not cut off merely the ears of their corn,[725] but
“that the straw was taken with it, otherwise there would not have been
the seeds of so many weeds in the corn.” Diodorus Siculus, however, who
wrote in the first century B.C., tells us distinctly that the Britons
gathered in their harvest by cutting off the ears of corn and storing
them in subterraneous repositories. From these they picked the oldest
day by day for their food. Whether for threshing they made use of the
_tribulum_,[726] that “sharp threshing instrument having teeth,” before
Roman times, is doubtful; but that so primitive an instrument, armed
with flakes of flint or other stone, should have remained in use in
some Mediterranean countries until the present day, is a remarkable
instance of the power of survival of ancient customs. Such an
instance of persistence in a primitive form much reduces the extreme
improbability of the use of bronze sickles in Germany having lasted
until a time when Roman numerals might appear upon them. If every St.
Andrew’s cross and every straight line found upon ancient instruments
is to be regarded as a Roman numeral, and the objects bearing them are
to be referred to Roman times as their earliest possible date, the
range of Roman antiquities will be much enlarged, and will be found
to contain, among other objects, a large number of the bronze knives
from the Swiss Lake-dwellings; for one of the most common ornaments on
the backs of these knives consists of a repetition of the pattern
XIIIIIXIIIIIXIIIII.
Even were it proved that in some part of Europe the use of bronze
sickles survived to so late a date as supposed by Dr. Lindenschmit,
their great scarcity in the British Isles affords a conclusive argument
against their being assigned to the period of the Roman occupation, of
which other remains have come down to us in such abundance.