DAGGERS AND THEIR HILTS.—RAPIER-SHAPED BLADES.
AMONG all uncivilised, if not indeed among all civilised nations, arms
of offence take a far higher rank than mere tools and implements;
and on the first introduction of the use of metal into any country,
there is great antecedent probability that the primary service to
which it was applied was for the manufacture of weapons. So far as
there are means of judging, a small knife or knife-dagger appears to
have been among the earliest objects to which bronze was applied in
Britain. Possibly, like the Highland dirk, the early form may have
served for both peaceful and warlike purposes; but there are other and
apparently later forms made for piercing rather than for cutting, and
which are unmistakably weapons. The distinction which can be drawn
between knives, such as some of those described in the last chapter,
and the daggers to be described in this, is no doubt to a great
extent arbitrary, and mainly dependent upon size. In the same way the
distinction between a large dagger and a small sword, such as some of
those to be described in the next chapter, is one for which no hard and
fast rule can be laid down.
Nor in treating of daggers can any trustworthy chronological
arrangement be adopted, though it is probable, as already observed,
that the thin flat blades are earliest in date. The late Dr. Thurnam,
in the paper already frequently cited, has pointed out that of bronze
blades without sockets there are two distinct types. These are the
tanged, which he regards as perhaps the more modern, and those provided
with rivet-holes in the base of the blade, which seem to be the most
ancient. I purpose mainly to follow this classification; and, inasmuch
as the tanged blades are most closely connected with the smaller
examples of the same character, described in the last chapter, I take
them first in order, though possibly they are not the earliest in date.
[Illustration: Fig. 277.—Roundway. ½]
But for its size, the blade shown in Fig. 277 might have been regarded
as a knife for ordinary use. The original was found in a barrow at
Roundway,[786] Wilts, covered with a layer of black powder, probably
the remains of a wooden sheath and handle, the upper outline of
which latter is marked upon the blade. It lay near the left hand
of a contracted skeleton, with its point towards the feet. Between
the bones of the left fore-arm was a bracer,[787] or arm-guard, of
chlorite slate, and part of the blade and the tang of some small
instrument, perhaps a knife. Near the head was a barbed flint
arrow-head.
A smaller blade[788] (5½ inches), of nearly the same shape and
character, was found in one of the barrows near Winterslow, Wilts, as
well as one more tapering in form.
Another, from Sutton Courtney, Berks (6¼ inches by 1⅝ inches), is in
the British Museum.
Another (5½ inches) was found by Mr. Fenton in a barrow at Mere
Down,[789] Wilts. In this case also there was a stone bracer near the
left side of the contracted skeleton. Another, imperfect, and narrower
in the tang, was found at Bryn Crûg,[790] Carnarvon, with interments.
The double-looped celt (Fig. 88) was found at the same place.
Canon Greenwell, F.R.S., has what appears to be a tanged dagger (6
inches) from Sherburn Wold, Yorkshire.
A blade of this character (10 inches) was found by M. Cazalis de
Fondouce in the cave of Bounias,[791] near Fonvielle (Bouches du
Rhône), associated with instruments of flint.
Smaller tanged blades, of which it is hard to say whether they are
knives or daggers, are not uncommon in France. Two are engraved in the
“Matériaux.”[792] I have specimens from Lyons, and also from Brittany.
Another form, which appears to be a dagger rather than a knife, has
the tang nearly as wide as the blade, and towards its base there is a
single rivet-hole. A dagger of this kind was found with a contracted
interment in a barrow near Driffield, Yorkshire, and an engraving
of it is given in the _Archæologia_[793] from which Fig. 278 is
reproduced. It had a wooden sheath as well as the wooden handle, of
which a part is shown. On the arm of the skeleton was a stone bracer.
Another, rather narrower in the tang and about 4¼ inches long, was
found, with a stone axe-hammer, and bones, in an urn within a barrow
at Winwick,[794] near Warrington, Lancashire. One (2⅛ inches) with
a rivet-hole in its broad tang was found in an urn on Lancaster
Moor.[795]
A dagger of nearly the same form but having two rivet-holes was found
by the late Rev. R. Kirwan in a barrow at Upton Pyne,[796] Devon.
[Illustration: Fig. 278.—Driffield. ½]
One, only 3¼ inches long, and much like Fig. 278 in form, was
found in an urn with burnt bones in Moot Low,[797] near Middleton,
Derbyshire.
Another was found with burnt bones in a barrow at Lady Low,[798] near
Blore, Staffordshire. The end of the handle in this instance was
straight, and not hollowed. One (5⅜ inches) with a broad tang, through
which passes a single rivet, was found in the Thames.[799] It is now in
the British Museum.
What Sir R. C. Hoare terms a lance-head (3 inches), found with amber
beads in the Golden Barrow,[800] Upton Lovel, appears to have been a
knife-dagger of this character.
A knife, 1 inch wide, which had been fastened to its haft of ox-horn by
a single rivet, was found by Canon Greenwell in a barrow at Rudstone,
Yorkshire.[801] With the same interment was an axe-hammer of stone and
a flint tool. A blade like Fig. 278 (3 inches), from the sand-hills
near Glenluce,[802] Wigtonshire, has been figured.
Daggers, or possibly spear-heads, with a broad tang, as well as the
moulds in which they were cast, were discovered by Dr. Schliemann on
the presumed site of Troy.[803]
The more ordinary form of instrument is that of which the blade was
secured to the handle by two or more rivets at its broad base. These
may be subdivided into knife-daggers with thin flat blades, and daggers
which as a rule have a thick midrib and more or less ornamentation on
the surface of the blade. The former variety is now generally accepted
as being the more ancient of the two, and may probably have served as a
cutting instrument for all purposes, and not have been intended for a
weapon.
Fig. 279, representing a knife-dagger from a barrow at
Butterwick,[804] Yorkshire, E.R., explored by Canon Greenwell, will
give a good idea of the usual form, though these instruments are not
unfrequently more acutely pointed. This specimen was found with the
body of a young man, and had been encased in a wooden sheath. The haft
had been of ox-horn, which has perished, though leaving marks of its
texture on the oxidized blade. In the same grave were a flat bronze
celt (Fig. 2), a bronze pricker or awl (Fig. 225), a flint knife, and
some jet buttons. Another blade of the same character, but rather
narrower in its proportions, was found in a barrow at Rudstone,[805]
Yorkshire. The handle had in this instance also been of ox-horn. In
the same grave were a whetstone, a ring and an ornamental button of
jet, and a half-nodule of pyrites and a flint for striking a light.
Of the shape of the handles I shall subsequently speak; I will only
here remark that at their upper part, where they clasped the blade,
there was usually a semicircular or horseshoe-shaped notch, in some
instances very wide and in others but narrow. This notch is more
rarely somewhat V-shaped in form.
[Illustration: Fig. 279.—Butterwick. ½]
A blade of nearly the same form as Fig. 279, but with only two rivet
holes, found in a barrow at Blewbury,[806] Berks, is preserved in the
Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. Another, also with two rivets, was found
by the late Mr. Bateman in a barrow near Minning Low,[807] Derbyshire.
Its handle appears to have been of horn. Its owner, wrapped in a skin,
had been buried enveloped in fern-leaves, and with him was also a flat
bronze celt, a flat bead of jet, and a flint scraper. Dr. Thurnam
mentions eighteen[808] other blades, varying from 2½ inches to 6¾
inches in length, as having been found during the Bateman excavations,
as well as one 7¾ inches long and sharply pointed, found at Lett
Low,[809] near Warslow, Staffordshire. Of these twenty, sixteen
were found with unburnt bodies and four with burnt. Some of these
were, however, of the tanged variety, and some fluted or ribbed. At
Carder Low a small axe-hammer of basalt, as well as a knife-dagger of
this kind, with the edges worn hollow by use, had been placed with
the body. The same was the case in a barrow at Parcelly Hay, near
Hartington, Derbyshire.
At End Low, near Hartington, there was a rudely formed “spear-head” of
flint beside the knife-dagger, and at Thorncliff,[810] on Calton Moor,
Staffordshire, “a neat instrument of flint.”
In some cases, though there were holes in the blade, there were
no rivets[811] in them, which led Mr. Bateman to think that they
were attached to their handles by ligatures. In a barrow in
Yorkshire,[812] Mr. Harland found, with remains of a burnt body, a
small bronze knife which still had adhering to it some portions of
cord partly charred, apparently the remains of what had formed the
attachment to the handle. Pins of wood, bone, or horn were no doubt
frequently used instead of metal rivets. Such pins seem to have been
commonly employed for securing spear-heads to their shafts. “An
instrument of brass,[813] formed like a spear-head, but flat and
thin,” was found in a barrow on Bincombe Down, Dorsetshire. “It had
been fixed to a shaft by means of three wooden pegs, one of which
remained in the perforation when found, but on being exposed to the
air fell immediately into dust.” In certain dagger blades with four
or more rivet-holes some are devoid of rivets, while there are metal
rivets in the others.
A remarkably small blade, only 1¾ inches long, with two rivet-holes,
was found in a tumulus in Dorsetshire.[814] Another (4⅛ inches) lay
with burnt bones, in what was regarded as a cleft and hollowed trunk
of a tree, in a barrow near Yatesbury,[815] Wilts. Another, more
triangular in shape, and also with two rivet-holes, was found in a
barrow near Stonehenge.[816]
Another (2½ inches) of the same character was found with burnt
bones, a needle of wood, and a broken flint pebble, in an urn at
Tomen-y-Mur,[817] near Festiniog, Merionethshire.
Of knife-daggers with three rivet-holes found in our southern
counties, may be mentioned one (5½ inches) found with a drinking
cup and a perforated stone axe, accompanying an unburnt interment,
in a barrow at East Kennett,[818] Wilts. Another (4¼ inches), also
accompanied by a stone axe-hammer, was found in a barrow called
Jack’s Castle,[819] near Stourton. The body had in this instance
been burnt. Another knife-dagger, also with burnt bones, in a barrow
at Wilsford,[820] was accompanied by two flint arrow-heads, some
whetstones, and some instruments of stag’s-horn. Another, protected by
a wooden scabbard, was found in a barrow at Brigmilston.[821]
What appear to have been blades of the same kind were found with burnt
bones in the barrows near Priddy,[822] Somerset, and Ashey Down,[823]
Isle of Wight (6 inches). The latter is tapering in form. One (7⅜
inches) which shows no rivets was found at Culter,[824] Lanarkshire.
An unfinished blade without rivet-holes was also found, with castings
of palstaves and flanged celts, at Rhosnesney,[825] near Wrexham.
From Derbyshire may be cited that from Carder Low,[826] already
described, and one from Brier Low.[827] Another from Lett Low,[828]
Staffordshire, has already been mentioned, as have been others
described by Bateman.[829] One from a barrow at Middleton[830] was
regarded by Pegge as a spear-head.
[Illustration: Fig. 280.—Helperthorpe. ½]
From Yorkshire Mr. Bateman describes one (4½ inches) with a
crescent-shaped mark showing the form of the handle, found with an
extended skeleton at Cawthorn.[831] Another (6 or 7 inches), from
a barrow near Pickering,[832] had a V-shaped notch in the handle,
to which had been attached a small bone pommel. One from Bishop
Wilton,[833] belonging to Mr. Mortimer, has been engraved by Dr.
Thurnam.
The mention of this pommel suggests that it is time to consider the
manner in which these blades were hafted, as to which the discoveries
of Sir Richard Colt Hoare in the Wiltshire barrows, and of Canon
Greenwell in those of Yorkshire, leave no doubt. The hafts appear in
nearly all cases to have consisted of ox-horn, bone, or wood, sometimes
in a single piece with a notch for receiving the blade, and sometimes
formed of a pair of similar pieces riveted together, one on each side
of the blade. The lower end of the haft was often inserted in a hollow
pommel usually of bone.
[Illustration: Fig. 281.—Helperthorpe. ½]
The nature of the arrangement of the haft when formed of two pieces
will be readily understood on reference to Fig. 280, in which the
presumed outline of the original ox-horn haft is shown by dotted lines,
and the rivets by which the two plates of horn were bound together are
in the position they originally occupied along the centre of the haft.
The outline of the upper part of this handle, where it was secured
by two rivets to the blade, is still visible, and is shown by darker
shading. The pommel at the lower end was attached by pins of horn or
of wood, and not by metal rivets. A separate view and section of the
pommel is shown in Fig. 281. The original was found by Canon Greenwell,
F.R.S., with a contracted interment in a barrow at Helperthorpe,[834]
Yorkshire, at the opening of which I was present. As will be seen,
the blade has all the appearance of having been much worn by use and
repeated whetting.
Bone pommels of the same kind have been frequently met with in
barrows, but their purpose was not known to some of the earlier
explorers. One from a barrow on Brassington Moor[835] is described by
Mr. Bateman as a bone stud perforated with six holes, and was thought
to have been intended for being sown on to some article of dress or
ornament. Another was found in a barrow at Narrowdale Hill,[836] near
Alstonefield, and is also described as a bone button. In both these
instances the dagger itself seems to have entirely perished.
In a barrow subsequently opened by Mr. Ruddock near Pickering,[837]
the butt end of a dagger handle was recognised in one of these
objects. In this instance the pommel was made of three pieces of bone
fastened together by two bronze rivets, and having two holes for the
pegs by which it was secured to the handle.
[Illustration: Fig. 282.—Garton.]
[Illustration: Fig. 283.—Wilmslow.]
Two others in solid bone from barrows at Garton[838] and Bishop
Wilton, Yorkshire, have been figured by Dr. Thurnam. The former is
here by permission reproduced. That from the well-known Gristhorpe
tumulus,[839] near Scarborough, in which the body lay in the hollowed
trunk of an oak-tree, is more neatly made, being of oval outline with
a projecting bead round the base. It has holes for three pins.
Another pommel of an ornamental character was found with burnt bones
in an urn at Wilmslow, Cheshire, and is engraved in the _Journal of
the British Archæological Association_,[840] from which Fig. 283 is
here reproduced. The receptacle is so small that the haft to which it
was attached probably consisted of but a single piece of ox-horn or
wood. It appears as if the mortise had been made by drilling three
holes side by side.
A very remarkable and beautiful hilt of a sword or dagger, formed of
amber of a rich red colour and inlaid with pins of gold, was found in
a barrow on Hammeldon Down,[841] Devonshire. By the kindness of the
Committee of the Plymouth Athenæum I am enabled to give two views
and a section of this unique object in Fig. 284. Instead of a socket
or mortise, there is in this instance a tenon, or projection, which
entered into a mortise or hole in the handle. On each side of this
tenon is a small mortise of the same length, and through the tenon
have been drilled two small holes, one from each side, for pins to
attach the pommel to the handle. A small part of the pommel which was
broken off in old times seems to have been united to the main body by
a series of minute gold rivets or clips, but this piece has again been
severed, though the pins round the margin of the fracture remain. This
pommel seems disproportionately large for the slightly fluted blade,
of which a fragment was found in the same barrow.
[Illustration: Fig. 284.—Hammeldon Down. 1/1]
A small object of amber, apparently the pommel of a diminutive dagger,
was found in a barrow at Winterbourn Stoke,[842] Wilts. A small knife
or scraper, mounted in a handle formed of two pieces of amber, secured
by two rivets and bound with four strips of gold, is also preserved at
Stourhead.[843] The blade is at the side like that of a hatchet.
Amber was used for inlaying some of the ivory hilts of iron swords at
Hallstatt.
The bronze object shown full size in Fig. 285 may not improbably be
the pommel of the hilt of a dagger or sword. The hole through the base
is irregular in form, and may be accidental. It was found in the hoard
at Reach Fen, Cambridge, in which were also the tip of a scabbard and
some fragments of swords, as well as two large double-edged knives.
A somewhat similar object is in the Musée de l’Oratoire, at Nantes.
Another, found at Grésine,[844] Savoy, has been regarded as the tip
for a scabbard. Another was found in the department of La Manche.[845]
[Illustration: Fig. 285.—Reach Fen. 1/1]
[Illustration: Fig. 286.—Allhallows, Hoo. 1/1]
What appears to be the hilt of either a sword or dagger was found
in a hoard of bronze objects at Allhallows,[846] Hoo, Kent. By the
kindness of Mr. Humphrey Wickham I am able to engrave it as Fig.
286. It consisted originally of a rectangular socketed ferrule with
a rivet-hole through it, and attached to a semicircular end like the
half of a grooved pulley. The socket itself extends for some distance
into this semicircular part. From portions of a sword having been
found with it, Mr. Wickham has regarded it as a kind of pommel. It
may, however, have been the end of a scabbard or a chape, and, if so,
should have been described in Chapter XIII. The knife, Fig. 261, was
found in the same hoard.
To return, however, to undoubted examples. The most remarkable of all
dagger handles discovered in the British Isles are those obtained by
Sir R. Colt Hoare from the barrows of Wiltshire.
One of these, from a barrow at Brigmilston,[847] is here reproduced in
Fig. 287, taken from the engraving in “Ancient Wiltshire.” It is thus
described by the late Dr. Thurnam: “It is of the thin broad-bladed
variety. The handle is of wood, held together by thirty rivets of
bronze, and strengthened at the end by an oblong bone pommel fastened
with two pegs. It is decorated by dots incised in the surface of
the wood, forming a border of double lines and circles between the
heads of the rivets.” He goes on to say that a similar dagger of the
broad variety, having exactly the same number of rivets, was found
in one of the Derbyshire[848] barrows. Two buttons of polished shale
accompanied this interment. Another, from Garton,[849] Yorkshire, in
the collection of Mr. Mortimer, has thirty-seven rivets and two strips
of bronze at the sides of the handle, in addition to the four rivets
for securing the blade. The bone pommel is shown in Fig. 282.
Another dagger, of somewhat the same character, was found at
Leicester, and is preserved in the museum of that town. For the sketch
from which Fig. 288 is engraved I am indebted to Mr. C. Read. In this
instance the pommel consists of two pieces of bone riveted on either
side of a bronze plate, which, however, does not appear to have been
continuous with the blade. From the length of the rivets remaining in
the blade, the handle appears to have been somewhat thicker in the
middle than at the sides.
[Illustration: Fig. 287.—Brigmilston. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 288.—Leicester. ½]
In the British Museum is a dagger from a barrow at Standlow,
Derbyshire, with a bone pommel of nearly the same character as that
from Leicester.
Perhaps the most highly ornamented dagger handle ever discovered is
that which was found by Sir R. Colt Hoare in the Bush Barrow,[850]
near Normanton, the lower part of which, copied from the engraving
in “Ancient Wiltshire,” is shown in Fig. 289. A drawing of the
whole dagger with its handle restored has been published by Dr.
Thurnam.[851] The blade is 10½ inches long and slightly fluted at the
sides, so that it is not, strictly speaking, a knife-dagger such as
those hitherto described. It appears, however, best to call attention
to it in this place. It lay with a skeleton placed north and south,
with which were some rivets and thin plates of bronze, supposed to be
traces of a shield.
[Illustration: Fig. 289.—Normanton.]
At the shoulders was a flanged bronze celt, like Fig. 9. Near the
right arm was the dagger and “a spear-head” of bronze. These were
accompanied by a nearly square plate of thin gold, with a projecting
flat tongue or hook, which was thought to have decorated the sheath
of the dagger. Over the breast lay another lozenge-shaped plate of
gold, 7 inches by 6 inches, the edges lapped over a piece of wood. On
the right side of the skeleton was a stone hammer,[852] some articles
of bone, many small rings of the same material, and another gold
lozenge much smaller than that on the breast. As to the handle, I may
repeat Sir Richard’s words: “It exceeds anything we have yet seen,
both in design and execution, and could not be surpassed (if, indeed,
equalled) by the most able workman of modern times. By the annexed
engraving you will immediately recognise the British zigzag or the
modern Vandyke pattern, which was formed, with a labour and exactness
almost unaccountable, by thousands of gold rivets smaller than the
smallest pin. The head of the handle, though exhibiting no variety of
pattern, was also formed by the same kind of studding.
[Illustration: Fig. 290.—Roke Down. ½]
So very minute, indeed, were these pins, that our labourers had thrown
out thousands of them with their shovels and scattered them in every
direction before, by the necessary aid of a magnifying glass, we could
discover what they were, but fortunately enough remained attached to
the wood to enable us to develop the pattern.” Some of the pins are
shown in the figure below the hilt.
As Dr. Thurnam has pointed out, the ornamentation on a thin piece of
metal (said to have been gilt), which apparently decorated the hilt of
a bronze dagger, found in a barrow in Dorsetshire,[853] is of the same
character, though produced in a different manner. This dagger is said
by Douglas to have been “incisted” into wood. It is uncertain whether
this refers to the hilt or to the sheath; but in several instances
remains of sheaths have been found upon the blades of daggers, some
of which have been already adduced, and others will hereafter be
mentioned. Sir R. Colt Hoare, in a barrow near Amesbury,[854] found
an interment of burnt bones, and with it a bronze dagger which had
been “secured by a sheath of wood lined with linen cloth.” A small
lance-head, a pair of ivory nippers, and an ivory pin accompanied the
interment. In one instance the wood of the sheath was “apparently
willow.”[855]
I am unable to guarantee the accuracy of the representation of a
large dagger with its handle given in Fig. 290, the original having
unfortunately been destroyed in a fire. I have, however, copied it
from Dr. Thurnam’s[856] engraving, which was taken from a drawing by
the late Mr. S. Solly, F.S.A.[857] It was found in 1845, in a barrow
on Roke Down, near Blandford, Dorsetshire, and is thus described by
Mr. Shipp:[858] “The blade is exquisitely finished, and the handle,
which is ivory, as perfect and as highly polished as any of more
recent date. It was found with two small bronze spear-heads at the
bottom of a cist cut in the chalk, and covered with burnt bones
and ashes; and over it was an inverted urn of the coarsest make,
unburnt and unornamented.” In Mr. Shipp’s drawing the handle expands
gradually to the base like the mouth of a trumpet. In a subsequent
communication[859] Mr. Shipp describes the two spear-heads as of iron.
Mr. Solly[860] says that with it was a second small blade, also of
bronze, which may have been a knife, and makes no mention of iron
spear-heads. He also says that it lay beneath a stone more than
a ton in weight. Mr. C. Warne, F.S.A., has informed me that the
spear-heads—if, indeed, such they were—were of bronze and not of
iron. He has engraved the dagger in his Plate X.,[861] not from the
original, but from the figure in the _Journal of the Archæological
Association_.
Hilts made of bronze, though of frequent occurrence in Scandinavia,
the South of France, and Italy, are rarely discovered in England or
Scotland. That said to have been found at Bere Hill, near Andover,
cast in one piece with the blade and with a raised rim round the
margin, and studs like rivet-heads in the middle, has been kindly
submitted to me by Mr. Samuel Shaw, its owner, and I believe it to
be of Eastern and probably Chinese origin. Near Little Wenlock,[862]
however, a portion of a dagger was found with part of the handle, in
form like that of the sword from Lincoln (Fig. 350), attached by four
rivets. With it were a socketed celt, some spear-heads, and whetstones.
A beautiful Egyptian[863] bronze dagger from Thebes is in the Berlin
Museum. It has a narrow rapier-like blade and a broad flat hilt of
ivory.
Others of nearly the same character are in the British Museum. The
end of the hilt is often hollowed, like that of Fig. 277, and the
attachment to the blade is by means of three rivets.
In Ireland a few daggers have been found with bronze hilts still
attached.
In the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy is a fine example, which
has frequently been published, and which I have here reproduced as
Fig. 291, from the engraving given by Wilde,[864] but on the scale
of one-half. Both blade and handle are “highly ornamented, both in
casting and also by the punch or graver.”
A portion of a blade with a bronze hilt still attached was found near
Belleek, Co. Fermanagh, and has been engraved in the _Proceedings of
the Royal Historical and Archæological Association of Ireland_.[865]
The cut is by their kindness here reproduced as Fig. 292. The handle
is hollow, and the blade appears to have been originally attached by
four pins or rivets, of which but two now remain. Possibly the other
two were of horn.
[Illustration: Fig. 291.—Ireland.]
[Illustration: Fig. 292.—Belleek.]
[Illustration: Fig. 293.—Ireland. ½]
Another Irish form of hafted dagger has also been frequently
published.[866] It is shown in Fig. 293. Vallancey describes this
specimen as cast in one piece, the rivets being either ornamental
or intended to stop against the top of the scabbard. No doubt these
imitation rivets are mere “survivals” from those of the daggers, which
were thus fastened to their handles before it was found that it saved
trouble to cast the whole in one piece. The hole in the handle, the
sides of which are left rough, was probably filled by two slightly
overlapping plates of wood or horn riveted together.
[Illustration: Fig. 294.—Woodyates. ½]
Another[867] (14½ inches) was thought to have the “loop-fashioned”
handle for suspending the weapon to a thong or the belt. I think,
however, that when the daggers were in use the handles were to all
appearance solid. In one found in Dunshaughlin[868] crannoge, Co.
Meath, there is a second oval hole at the end of the hilt, which may
have been used for suspension.
There is a good example of this type of dagger in the Blackmore Museum
at Salisbury.
A small dagger (7⅛ inches), found near Ballinamore,[869] Co. Leitrim,
has an extension of the blade in the form of a thin plate with a
button at the bottom so as to form the body of the handle. In this
part are two rivet-holes for the attachment of the plates of wood or
horn to form the handle.
Some handles of bronze knives found in Scandinavia and
Switzerland[870] are formed with similar openings. Daggers with the
blade and handle cast in one piece have been found in the Italian
_terramare_.[871] I have a dagger of the same kind from Hungary.
I must now return, from this digression as to the hafting of daggers,
to the thin blades or knife-daggers of which I was speaking.
Of those with four rivets but few can be cited. One of unusually
large size is shown in Fig. 294. The original was found by Sir R. C.
Hoare in a barrow at Woodyates.[872] It was protected by a wooden
scabbard. A perforated ring and two buttons of jet, four barbed flint
arrow-heads, and a bronze pin were found with the same skeleton.
This blade, like many others, is described as having been gilt, but
this can hardly have been the case. Dr. Thurnam[873] has tested such
brilliantly polished surfaces for gold, but found no traces of that
metal.
A blade of this form is engraved in the “Barrow Diggers,”[874] but is
described as a stone celt split in two.
A nearly similar blade from Oefeli[875] (Lac de Bienne) is said to be
of copper.
In Fig. 295 is shown a blade with, five rivets, from an interment at
Homington,[876] near Salisbury, which, is now in the British Museum.
One side is still highly polished, with an almost mirror-like lustre.
The mark of the hilt is very distinct upon it.
[Illustration: Fig. 295.—Homington. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 296.—Idmiston. ½]
One of more pointed form, and with a more V-shaped notch in the
hilt, was found with an unburnt body in a cairn at North Charlton,
Northumberland, and is in the Greenwell Collection in the British
Museum. The portion is broken off in which were the rivets.
Occasionally the surface of these thin blades is ornamented by
engraved or punched patterns. The decoration usually consists of
converging bands of parallel lines. The example given as Fig. 296 was
found in a barrow at Idmiston, near Salisbury, and is now preserved in
the Blackmore Museum. In one found in Dow Low,[877] Derbyshire, shown
in Fig. 297, there are three parallel lines on either side which meet
in chevron. This blade has two rivets.
In a barrow near Maiden Castle,[878] Dorchester, opened by Mr.
Sydenham, there lay in the midst of the ashes two bronze daggers. One
(4 inches) has two lines engraved on it, forming a chevron parallel
with the edges; the other (5½ inches) is described as “curiously
wrought, chased, and gilt.” This latter, to judge from Mr. Warne’s
engraving, has a slight projecting rib along the middle of the blade,
between two others converging to meet it near the point. The space on
each side of the central rib appears to be decorated by small circular
indentations.
One from another barrow in Dorsetshire[879] has a treble chevron on
the blade and a straight transverse groove between two ridges just
above the hilt.
A small blade found in an urn at Wilmslow,[880] Cheshire, seems to
have a single chevron upon it.
A dagger from a tumulus at Hewelinghen (Pas de Calais), and now in the
museum at Boulogne, is of this character. It has double lines to the
chevron and four rivet-holes.
Another was found with an interment at Rame[881] (Hautes Alpes) in
company with other articles of bronze. It has six rivet-holes. A
narrower blade and more of the rapier shape, with four rivet-holes,
was found in the Marais de Donges[882] (Loire Inférieure).
A dagger much like Fig. 296, but with a double row of rivets, has been
found at Mœrigen,[883] in the Lac de Bienne.
A dagger with a pointed blade having two parallel grooves just within
each edge was found with other dagger blades, flat celts, flint
arrow-heads, &c., in the tumulus of Kerhué-Bras, Finistère.[884] It
has a plain wooden handle, to which the blade is attached by six
rivets. The character of some of the other blades is peculiar.
A beautifully patinated dagger (7¼ inches) from the Seine at Paris,
now in my own collection, has six rivet-holes at the base, as in Fig.
296, and is of nearly the same shape, though rather more sharply
pointed. One of the rivets which remains is ⅝ inch long. The blade has
upon it a small low rib on either side running parallel with the edge.
On the inner side of the rib there is a groove, on the outer side the
blade is flat. The edge itself is fluted.
I have a small thin blade (4⅝ inches), like Fig. 298, found in the
Palatinate, which has four rivet-holes at the base. There is a band of
five parallel lines running along each edge, and in the centre of the
blade a chevron with the sides slightly curved inwards formed of two
similar bands. The lines seem to have been punched in. The mark left
by the hilt is like that on Fig. 296.
What appear to be knife-daggers, some of them with notches at the side
for the reception of rivets, have been found with interments in Spain,
and have been described by Don Gongora y Martinez[885] as lance-heads.
Knife-daggers of much the same character as the English have
occasionally been found in Scotland.
That shown in Fig. 298 was found in a stone cist in a cairn at
Cleigh,[886] Loch Nell, Argyleshire. Along the margin of the original
handle is a line of small indentations made with a pointed punch.
[Illustration: Fig. 297.—Dow Low.]
[Illustration: Fig. 298.—Cleigh. ½]
Another (4¼ inches) was found in a cairn at Linlathen,[887]
Forfarshire, together with a “drinking cup.” Particulars of the
finding of several others, with interments in sepulchral cairns, have
been given by Mr. Joseph Anderson[888] in an interesting paper, to
which the reader is referred.
[Illustration: Fig. 299.—Collessie. 1/1]
Three others, from Drumlanrick,[889] near Callander, Perth (4½ inches,
two rivets), Crossmichael, Kirkcudbrightshire, and Callachally,
Island of Mull, are in the Antiquarian Museum at Edinburgh. Another,
apparently of the same type, was found in a cairn at Collessie,[890]
Fife, the handle of which appears to have been encircled by the gold
fillet shown in Fig. 299. The sheath seems to have been of wood
covered with cow-hide, the hairs on the outside.
In Ireland the thin flat blades are of rare occurrence. Canon
Greenwell, F.R.S., has one from Co. Antrim (4¾ inches) with three
rivet-holes, and with a V-shaped notch in the mark of the handle.
There is a form of blade which appears to be intermediate between
the flat knife-daggers and those to which the name of dagger may
more properly be applied, which are either considerably thicker at
the centre than towards the edges, or else have a certain number of
strengthening ribs running along the blade. This intermediate form has
a single narrow rounded rib running along the centre of the blade.
That shown in Fig. 300 is an example of the short and broad variety of
this kind. It was found in a barrow at Musdin,[891] Staffordshire, and
has a splendid patina, rivalling malachite in colour. The relation of
the dagger to any interment is uncertain.
[Illustration: Fig. 300.—Musdin. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 301.—Plymstock. ⅔]
[Illustration: Fig. 302.—Winterbourne Stoke. ½]
A dagger of this class, but more pointed and with two parallel lines
engraved on each side of the midrib, was found by Canon Greenwell,
F.R.S., in one of the barrows called the Three Tremblers,[892]
Yorkshire. It showed traces of both its handle and sheath. With it was
a beautifully flaked large flint knife.
A more pointed blade, with the central rib much less pronounced, and
the notch in the hilt more distinct, was found with a skeleton in a
cist near Cheswick,[893] Northumberland, and is now in the Greenwell
Collection in the British Museum. It has been carefully polished.
Another, with a small, well-defined central midrib and two rivets,
was found by Canon Greenwell in a barrow at Aldbourn, Wilts. It
accompanied a burnt body.
Some of the Italian dagger blades are provided with similar midribs.
Of the English weapons just described some closely resemble in
character the much larger blades of which I shall subsequently have to
speak, and which not improbably were those of some form of halberd or
battle-axe.
A much longer and narrower form, in which the central rib is
partly the result of two long lateral grooves along the sides of
the blade, is shown in Fig. 301. This was found with two others at
Plymstock,[894] Devon, in company with flanged celts, a chisel, and
a tanged spear-head or dagger, Fig. 327, and is now in the British
Museum.
I have a much smaller blade, of somewhat the same character
(4⅞ inches), but imperfect at the base, found in a barrow near
Cirencester; and one smaller still (4¼ inches), from a small barrow
near Ablington, Cirencester, Gloucestershire. This latter appears to
have had two rivet-holes.
A beautiful example of the form of dagger of which Sir Richard C.
Hoare found numerous examples in the Wiltshire barrows is shown in
Fig. 302. It lay with burnt bones in a wooden cist in a barrow near
Winterbourn Stoke.[895] With it was another, which was, however,
broken, an ivory pin and tweezers, and two small pieces of ivory with
bronze rivets, which were supposed to have appertained to the tips
of a bow. They may more probably have formed part of the hilt of the
dagger. The blade is ornamented with parallel lines as usual, but it
also has a series of fine dotted lines.
Two other blades (8½ and 8 inches), less highly ornamented, and one
of them straighter at the edges, were found with a skeleton buried in
the hollowed trunk of an elm-tree in the King Barrow,[896] Winterbourn
Stoke. With one of these at the breast of the skeleton were traces of
a wooden scabbard, with indentations which were thought to have been
gilt. The handle is described as having been of box-wood, and rounded
somewhat like that of a large knife. The other dagger was at the
thigh. On the breast was also a bronze awl with what is said to have
been an ivory handle (Fig. 227).
Dr. Thurnam[897] thinks it not improbable that one of the blades may
have been a spear-head for use in the chase. In writing of these blades
he observes, “Where two are found with the same interment they are not
exactly of one type, but one is light and thin and of greater breadth,
the other strengthened by a stout midrib relatively heavier and of more
pointed or leaf-like form; the rivets also are larger. In such cases
the former may, perhaps, be supposed to be the dagger, the latter the
spear.” Sir Richard Hoare in some cases discriminates between the spear
and the dagger when two blades were found; and Mr. Cunnington observed
in a barrow at Roundway,[898] Wilts, that a pointed blade only 3 inches
long with three rivets had a wooden shaft about a foot in length,
which, as Dr. Thurnam remarks, could not have been the haft of a dagger.
The fact that many of these blades bore traces of having had a sheath
is in favour of their being daggers rather than spear-heads, though it
must not be forgotten that Homer[899] describes Achilles as drawing the
spear which had belonged to his father from its sheath—
Ἐκ δ̓ ἄρα σύριγγος πατρώϊον ἐσπάσατ̓ ἔγχος
Though Sir Richard Colt Hoare at first regarded all these blades as
spear-heads, he observes, about two-thirds of the way through his first
volume,[900] “daily experience convinces me that those implements we
supposed to be spear-heads, may more properly be denominated daggers,
or knives, worn by the side, or in a girdle, and not affixed to long
shafts like the modern lance.” Further on, however, he mentions a
“spear-head” from a barrow near Fovant,[901] having the greater part
of the wooden handle adhering to it, so that the mode by which it was
fastened was clearly seen. From the figure given in the _Archæologia_,
and in an unpublished plate of Hoare, this seems, however, to have been
a dagger rather than a spear.
Other blades of much the same character, found at Everley and Lake,
Wilts, and West Cranmore, Somerset, are figured by Dr. Thurnam.[902]
This latter was found by my friend the late Mr. J. W. Flower, F.G.S.
It is straight at the bottom of the blade, which went only ¼ inch into
the handle at the part where the usual semicircular notch was formed.
There was a single rivet on either side. The one preserved is ½ inch
long. Another, from Lake,[903] is given by Hoare. It was found with
burnt bones and was accompanied by a whetstone.
Others have been found in a barrow at Ablington,[904] near Amesbury,
Wilts, and at Rowcroft,[905] Yattendon, Berks (7½ inches).
A fine blade of this character (9¼ inches long), with three rivets,
was found near Leeds. The midrib ends in a square base. It is not
unlike the blade of a halberd.
A hafted blade of the same kind,[906] from Bere Regis, Dorsetshire,
has already been mentioned; as well as the decoration of the hilt
of one of the same form. One (9 inches) was found in a barrow at
Came,[907] and exhibited to the Archæological Institute. Mr.
Warne,[908] however, records the finding of two at that place. One
seems to have the midrib dotted over with small indentations.
That shown in Fig. 303 (which is copied from Dr. Thurnam’s[909]
engraving) is from Camerton, Somerset. It is remarkable as having a
kind of second midrib beyond the parallel grooves which border the
first. As usual it has but two rivets.
[Illustration: Fig. 303.—Camerton. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 304.—Cambridge. ½]
A bronze dagger (5½ inches) of the Wiltshire type was found in the
well-known barrow at Hove,[910] near Brighton, in which the interment
had been made in an oak coffin. An amber cup, a perforated stone
axe-hammer, and a whetstone had also been deposited with the body.
In a blade of this class (7 inches), found with burnt bones and
chippings of flint in a barrow at Teddington,[911] the midrib appears
to be formed of three beads.
Another (9 inches) formed part of the Arreton Down[912] find, of which
more will hereafter be said. The blade is ornamented with delicate
flutings and curves, and the midrib ends in a crescented hollow
exactly opposite to the usual notch in the handle. This specimen is
now in the British Museum.
A bronze dagger (6¾ inches) with three rivets, of which the blade
has much suffered from decomposition, was found with a lump of iron
pyrites within an urn in a barrow at Angrowse Mullion,[913] Cornwall.
A dagger blade of nearly the same kind, but with six rivets, found in
a barrow at Carnöel,[914] Finistère, is in the museum at the Hôtel
Cluny, Paris.
I have a dagger (9 inches) much like Fig. 302, only somewhat more
taper, found in the Seine at Paris. It has had three rivet-holes, and
on the blade are two bands of four lines parallel with the edge.
The strengthening of the blade is sometimes effected by forming it
with three or more projecting ribs instead of a single midrib. In
Fig. 304 is shown a dagger blade in my own collection, found not far
from Cambridge. On either side of the central rib and along the outer
margin of the two other ribs are lines of minute punctures by way of
ornament.
A somewhat larger blade (8⅝ inches), from Little Cressingham,[915]
Norfolk, has two deep furrows, one on each side of the broad central
midrib, and beyond these again two lateral ribs. This was secured
to its hilt by six rivets, three on each side. It was found with a
contracted male skeleton, accompanied by a necklace of amber beads and
some articles made of thin gold plate.
A dagger with a central rounded midrib, and apparently two
lateral ribs like those on Fig. 304, was found in a barrow near
Torrington,[916] Devon. It has three rivets, by which it was attached
to a wooden handle, and the blade showed traces of a wooden sheath,
which like the handle had perished.
A very small dagger or knife, with apparently a well-marked central
rib, found near Magherafelt,[917] Co. Londonderry, is shown in Fig.
305. It has a haft of oak attached, which is thought to be original.
Any pins or rivets that may have existed are now lost, and possibly
what were used may have been formed of wood or horn. Some thin wedges
of oak appear to have been used for steadying the blade in the haft,
the upper part of which has somewhat suffered from fire.
One of the daggers from the great find at Arreton Down,[918] Isle of
Wight (9⅝ inches), has the blade strengthened by three raised ribs.
It is shown in Fig. 306. It was found with several tanged blades like
Fig. 324, some flanged celts, and other objects. In a blade (9 inches)
in Canon Greenwell’s collection, and found at Ford, Northumberland,
there are two slight ribs about ⅜ inch from the edges and parallel to
them. There are punctures along the sides of the ribs.
Possibly some of these weapons may have been halberd blades, such as
those hereafter described.
Another form of dagger widens out considerably at the base, so as to
give the edges an ogival outline, and this form passes into what have
been termed rapier-like blades. As is the case with the leaf-shaped
blades, which will presently be described, some of these latter are so
long that it is hard to say whether they ought to be classed as swords
or as daggers.
The example engraved as Fig. 307 is from Scotland, and not England,
the original being in the Antiquarian Museum at Edinburgh. It was
found in 1828 upon the farm of Kilrie, near Kinghorn, Fifeshire. The
blade, as is usually the case, shows a central ridge upon it, but is
also ornamented with parallel lines engraved on either side, which is
a feature of far less common occurrence.
A plain blade of the same character (7½ inches), but narrower in its
proportions, was found at Bracklesham,[919] Sussex. It has as usual
two rivets only.
I have another (7⅛ inches), showing four facets on the blade, from
Soham Fen; the two rivet-holes cut through the margin of the base, as
in Fig. 304.
I have seen others from the Cambridge Fens.
Another (13½ inches) with four rivets, and more nearly approaching
the rapier form, was found in the Thames at Ditton,[920] Surrey,
and was presented to the British Museum by the Earl of Lovelace.
Another of the same character (7 inches) was found in the Thames near
Maidenhead,[921] and another (8 inches) at Battersea.[922]
[Illustration: Fig. 305.—Magherafelt. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 306.—Arreton Down. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 307.—Kinghorn. ½]
One (9¾ inches) with two rivets, and the base forming half a hexagon,
was found at New Bilton,[923] near Rugby. I have another of nearly the
same form (7¾ inches) from Waterbeach Fen, Cambridge.
In some the blade is ornamented by ribs cast in relief and by
engraving. A good example of the kind from the collection of Mr.
Robert Day, F.S.A., is shown in Fig. 308. It was found in the old
castle of Colloony,[924] Co. Sligo. One of much the same form as the
Wiltshire dagger (Fig. 302), found in the Thames,[925] near Richmond
(7-9/10 inches), has at the base a vandyke border and hatched diagonal
bands. The blade is slightly ridged but not otherwise ornamented. It
is now in the British Museum. One (5½ inches), ornamented at the base
in a similar manner, but with a short broad tang and one rivet-hole,
was found on Helsington Peat Moss,[926] Westmoreland.
[Illustration: Fig. 308.—Colloony. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 309.—Ireland. 1/1]
A blade (7 inches) also ornamented at the base with a vandyke pattern
was found at Pitkaithly, Perthshire, and is now in the museum at
Edinburgh.
Many blades of daggers from Germany are ornamented. One of the most
beautiful that I have seen is that in the museum at Laibach, Carniola.
Another (11½ inches), with the hilt complete, and the blade and
pommel-plate beautifully ornamented, was found near Vienna.[927] Von
Sacken points out that from the shortness of the hilt it is probable
that these daggers were held in the same manner as among the Peruvians
of the present day, with the two first fingers not round the hilt,
but stretched along the blade.
In the museum of the Royal Irish Academy[928] is a broad dagger blade
6⅝ inches long, and engraved with a kind of vandyke pattern at the
base. The ornamented portion is shown full size in Fig. 309, kindly
lent me by the Academy. It is rather remarkable that the ornaments
should extend to so near the base, as they must have been intended to
be free of the hilt, in which, in consequence, it would appear that
only a small part of the blade can have been inserted. The sides of
the socket in the hilt may, however, have extended some distance up
the sloping part of the base of the blade.
[Illustration: Fig. 310. Kilrea. ¼]
[Illustration: Fig. 311. Thames. ¼]
[Illustration: Fig. 312. Thatcham. ½]
An ornamented blade of more elongated form (16½ inches) is engraved
on the scale of one-fourth in Fig. 310. It was found at Kilrea, Co.
Sligo, and is in the collection of Canon Greenwell, F.R.S. There is a
vandyke pattern near the base, which is not shown in the cut.
I have a plain blade (14 inches) with merely a central ridge, and with
two rivet-holes, which is also from Ireland, and of much the same form.
In a small English blade (5 inches) of the same character there are no
rivet-holes at the base.
A blade from the Thames[929] of an ordinary rapier shape is shown on
the scale of one-fourth in Fig. 311. It is provided with two rivets,
and there are notches at the side of the base as if to allow of two
others being passed through the hilt to steady the blade.
A blade of the same form (10 inches), but with only two rivet-holes at
the base, was found at the foot of “the Castle Tump,” Newchurch,[930]
Radnorshire.
Rapier-shaped blades from 8½ inches to 12½ inches long, found at
Auchtermuchty, Fife; at Fairholm, Dumfriesshire; and near Ardoch,
Perthshire, are preserved in the Antiquarian Museum at Edinburgh.
Fig. 312 represents a small blade of this character dredged up from
the Kennet and Avon Canal, between Theale and Thatcham, Berks, and
given me by Mr. W. Whitaker, F.G.S. The two little notches at the side
of the base are peculiar.
A number of blades of this character, but without these small notches,
have been found in the Cambridgeshire Fens. Mr. Fisher, of Ely, has
four, varying in length from 8 inches to 9 inches, about 2 inches wide
at the base and 1 inch in the middle of the blade. They all have two
rivet-holes, in some of which are rivets ⅝ inch long.
Two blades found at South Kyme,[931] Lincolnshire, seem to have been
of this character. Another (13½ inches) was found at Corbridge,[932]
Northumberland, in company with a leaf-shaped spear-head. One from
Burwell Fen, in my own collection, has three rivet-holes, in which are
still two of the rivets, of which one is formed from a nearly square
piece of metal. A long blade of this kind (16½ inches), but with the
blade tapering more gradually from a rounded base, was dredged from
the Thames[933] near Vauxhall. Other rapier-shaped blades (18⅝ inches
and 14-3/10 inches) have been found in the Thames near Kingston.[934]
The base of these blades appears sometimes to be disproportionately
broad with regard to the blades themselves. An example from Coveney,
near Downham Hithe, Cambridgeshire, is in the collection of Mr.
Fisher, of Ely, and is shown in Fig. 313. This widening was no doubt
intended to aid in steadying the blade in its hilt.
I have a dagger of the same form (8 inches), but with a more tapering
blade, found in Waterbeach Fen, Cambridge. Another (11½ inches),
from Harlech, Merionethshire, is even narrower in the blade than the
Coveney example, but it has lost its edges by corrosion.
Some blades, from 12½ inches to 15½ inches long, and rapier-like in
character, from Maentwrog in the same county, are engraved in the
_Archæologia_,[935] and are now in the British Museum. The rivet
arrangements vary. A spear-head, with loops attached to the blade, was
found with them. One of them has notches at the sides of the base, as
in Fig. 311.
One 14¾ inches long, and of much the same outline, but flat in the
centre instead of ridged, was found at Fisherton,[936] near Salisbury,
and is in the Blackmore Museum. Another of the same character, but
broad in the blade (16½ inches), was found in the Thames.[937]
Canon Greenwell has two rapier-like blades from the Thames, 17½ inches
and 15⅝ inches long, from Sandford. With the latter was found a
leaf-shaped blade (19 inches) with two rivet-holes in the base.
Such blades are almost long enough to be regarded as swords.
A weapon of this form (16⅞ inches), with the blade reduced in
thickness towards the edges, and with two large rivets, one of them
still _in situ_, was found in the Thames, and is now in the British
Museum. Another in the same collection (12⅞ inches), from the Thames
at Kingston, is much narrower at the base.
A blade of this character from Blair Drummond Moss was exhibited in
the museum at Edinburgh, and is preserved at Blair Drummond House.
The type occurs in France. One found at Auxonne,[938] Haute Saône, is
in the St. Germain Museum.
Another, rather shorter and broader, with two rivets and two notches
in the sides of the base, was found in the bay of Penhouët[939] (Loire
Inférieure).
[Illustration: Fig. 313.—Coveney. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 314.—Thames. ½]
I have examples from the Seine at Paris, and also from the
neighbourhood of Amiens.
In some cases the rivet-holes cut through the margin of the metal as
in Fig. 304.
Blades appear sometimes to have been cast with deep rounded notches in
the base to receive the rivets instead of having holes drilled or cast
in them. That shown in Fig. 314 is of this character, and was found in
the Thames at London. It was given to me by Mr. C. Roach Smith, F.S.A.
Others of the same character have also been found in the Thames. One
of these (16⅝ inches), of nearly the same type but more rounded at the
lower part of the wings, is in the British Museum.
Canon Greenwell has a blade of this type (8¾ inches), found near
Methwold, Norfolk.
A specimen of this form (11 inches) from Edington Burtle, Somerset, is
in the Museum at Taunton.
A blade from Inchigecla,[940] Co. Cork, figured in the _Archæological
Journal_, seems to be notched in a similar manner. Another of
different form, but apparently notched after the same fashion, is
engraved by Vallancey.[941]
Some of the rapier-shaped blades, and especially those of larger size,
such as seem intermediate between swords and daggers, are ornamented
as well as strengthened by a projecting midrib, while their weight is
diminished by flutings along either side. A beautiful example of this
kind, found at the bottom of an old canoe, between the peat and clay,
near Chatteris, Cambs, is shown one-quarter size in Fig. 315. I have
another (14 inches) with the midrib not quite so prominent, and with
the rivet-holes cutting the margin of the base, found at Aston Ingham,
Herefordshire. A portion of another was found near Waterbeach,[942]
Cambs.
A broader blade of the same character (12¾ inches), with two very
large rivets, was found in the Thames at Kingston, and is now in the
British Museum. A narrower blade (12 inches) with the rivet-holes
cutting through the base, was found at Cæsar’s Camp, Farnham, Surrey,
and is in the same collection.
A long blade of this character from the Thames (21 inches long and
2⅜ inches wide at the base), with central ridge and slight flutings
at the edges, may more properly be regarded as a sword. It is in the
British Museum.
Six blades, all of the rapier character, but varying in details,
and from 12 inches to 22 inches in length, were found at Talaton,
Devonshire.[943] Some moulds of stone for blades of the same kind
were found at Hennock in the same county, and will subsequently be
described. Another blade (17 inches) was found at Winkleigh,[944] near
Crediton, Devon.
A blade of the same character from Ireland is given by Vallancey.[945]
A fine specimen from the same country (18 inches) is in the British
Museum.[946] What appears to be a part of a blade[947] of the same
kind has been regarded as a kind of “steel” for sharpening other
blades.
A rapier-shaped blade (21 inches) with two rivet-holes was found, with
socketed celts and a palstave, at Mawgan,[948] Cornwall.
Blades of this character are also found in France. Two from the
departments of Aisne and Somme,[949] have been figured. One (20 inches
long) is in the Museum at Nantes.
A rapier blade from the Chaussée Brunehault, and now in the Boulogne
Museum, is almost like a trefoil in outline at the hilt end.
A still longer blade of this character, which perhaps ought with
greater propriety to have been classed among swords, is shown in Fig.
316 on the scale of one-fourth. It has unfortunately lost its point,
but is still 17¾ inches long. It would appear to have been originally
about 20½ inches long, as shown in the figure. The blade in this
case has three projecting ribs between which and again towards the
edges it is fluted. It was found in the River Ouse, near Thetford.
The imperfect rivet-holes at the base appear to have been cast in the
blade, and the means of steadying it in its hilt must have been but
inadequate. Such weapons, however, can only have been intended for
stabbing, and not for striking.
Another blade of similar form, but with perfect rivet-holes, was
found in the fine earthwork of Badbury, Dorsetshire, and is in the
collection of Mr. Durden, of Blandford. It is 23½ inches long and
2-9/16 inches wide at the base above the rivet-holes.
Blades of this kind are occasionally found in Ireland. In the British
Museum is one (9 inches) with deep notches for the rivets, found in
Rathkennan Bog, Co. Tipperary.
[Illustration: Fig. 315.—Chatteris. ¼]
[Illustration: Fig. 316.—Thetford. ¼]
[Illustration: Fig. 317.—Londonderry. ¼]
[Illustration: Fig. 318. Lissane. 1/5]
Nearly all the rapier-shaped blades which have still to be noticed
may be regarded as probably those of swords rather than of daggers.
That shown in Fig. 317 is in my own collection, and was found near
Londonderry. The method of attachment to the hilt by two rivets
fitting into notches at the sides of the base of the blade is the same
as in some of the shorter weapons already mentioned.
Another (19 inches), found at Killeshandra,[950] Co. Cavan, has
similar notches at the sides, but the base is somewhat differently
shaped. Many of these rapier-shaped blades have been found in Ireland,
and Canon Greenwell has one (27¼ inches) which was bought in Scotland,
and probably found in that country.
A blade (14 inches) found in the Loire, and now in the Nantes Museum,
has side notches of nearly the same character as those in Fig. 317.
The finest example of the rapier kind ever found in Ireland is that
shown in Fig. 318, which by the kindness of the Royal Irish Academy I
here reproduce from Sir W. Wilde’s Catalogue. It is no less than 30¼
inches long, and is only ⅝ inch in width at the centre of the blade,
which has a strong midrib. It was found in a bog at Lissane, Co.
Derry. I have a blade, found at Noailles, near Beauvais, Oise, France,
identical in form and character, but only 23¼ inches long. Were it not
that the rivets are wanting, Fig. 318 might have been taken from the
French instead of the Irish specimen.
Another narrow blade, with a heavy rounded midrib (22⅝ inches long
and 1¾ inch broad at the base), was found in a bog at Galbally,
Co. Tyrone, and had at the time of its discovery the original hilt
attached. There also appear to have been some remains of a scabbard,
but this is uncertain. The hilt has been engraved in the _Proceedings
of the Royal Historical and Archæological Society of Ireland_,[951]
and is here by their kindness reproduced as Fig. 319.
Mr. Wakeman, of Enniskillen, in his interesting account of the
discovery, describes the material of which the hilt is formed as bone,
or rather whalebone. Both blade and haft are, however, now in my own
collection, and I think there can be no doubt that the material of
the hilt is in reality a dark-coloured ox-horn. On some Danish blades
I have seen the fibrous texture of this substance still shown by the
oxide or salt of the metal, forming as it were a cast of its surface,
which has outlasted the horn against which it was originally formed.
There are no traces of the rivets in the Galbally hilt, so that
probably pins of hard wood served to secure it to the blade.
Some Scandinavian daggers have been found with their handles of horn
still attached. One from a barrow in Hasslöf,[952] South Halland,
Sweden, had its leather sheath with a long rectangular end of bronze
still preserved. The length of the sheath is about twice that of the
blade of the dagger.
The bronze hilts for the long rapier-like blades are rare, but not
unknown.
One of these blades, found in the Co. Tipperary,[953] has its hilt
still attached by metal rivets, as shown in Fig. 320. The hilt
is hollow and is now open at the end, though probably, as Wilde
suggests, originally closed by a bone stud.
[Illustration: Fig. 319.—Galbally. 1/1]
The hilt of a sword in the museum at Tours is joined to the blade
in much the same fashion, but has a mere indentation instead of the
central semicircular notch. The body of the hilt is engraved with
bands of triangles and circles.
[Illustration: Fig. 320.—Tipperary. ½]
A rapier-shaped blade, with a bronze hilt of nearly the same form, but
with six rivets, is in the museum at Narbonne.[954] Another nearly
similar was found at Cheylounet,[955] Haute Loire.
Some Egyptian bronze daggers have the hilts formed in the same style.
In another form, the blade of which is more leaf-shaped, like the
ordinary bronze sword, the means of attachment to the haft are merely
slight notches at the sides. That shown in Fig. 321 is only 11 inches
long, but the edge has been removed for about 1½ inch from the base,
showing the portion which presumably was inserted in the hilt. The
original was found near Ely, and is in the collection of Mr. M.
Fisher, of that town.
I have a small specimen of the same kind (6¾ inches) from Fordham,
Cambs.
A more leaf-shaped blade (14 inches), with rivet notches at the side
of the base, was found, with leaf-shaped spear-heads, at Worth,[956]
Washfield, Devon. Possibly this, as suggested by Mr. Tucker, F.S.A.,
was originally a sword from which the hilt was broken.
A blade more like Fig. 321 (15¼ inches long and 1 inch broad) was
found in the Mardyke, near Grays Thurrock,[957] Essex. Some of the
weapons of this kind, like one from the Thames at Kingston (11½
inches), appear to have been made from broken sword or rapier-like
blades.
A long-tanged form, of which it is sometimes difficult to say whether
it is a sword, a knife, or a dagger, is of not unfrequent occurrence
in Ireland. That shown in Fig. 322 is in my own collection.
I have another found near Armagh (8½ inches), which is rather broader
in its proportions. It has a diagonal row of circular indentations
across each side of the blade just above the shoulders. Not improbably
these and other specimens originally existed in a somewhat different
form, but having been injured at their base were refitted with a tang
for attachment to the haft instead of being secured by rivets at the
sides like those last mentioned.
Some Danish daggers are provided with merely a slight tang like that
of a modern chisel.
[Illustration: Fig. 321.—Ely. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 322.—North of Ireland. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 323.—Raphoe. ¼]
Another form of blade is more of the nature of a bayonet than of a
rapier, yet this would appear to be the proper place in which to
notice it. The example shown in Fig. 323 is in the collection of
Canon Greenwell, F.R.S., and was found at Raphoe, Co. Donegal.
The section of the blade is nearly square, and the faces are
ornamented with parallel engraved lines. It ends in a tang with a
single hole through it, and with it was found a ferrule of bronze for
receiving the end of the handle.
In the Royal Irish Academy Museum is another blade of the same
character, 33 inches long and nearly square in section, but having the
faces fluted. With it was a ferrule, 3¾ inches long, having four ribs
at the base, with hollows between. It has one rivet-hole through it.
This specimen was found in a bog near Glenarm, Co. Antrim.
From the ferrules and general form of the blades it is probable that
they were lance or pike heads rather than of the nature of swords or
daggers. The “javelin with loop” found in Monaghan, and engraved in
the _Archæological Journal_[958] seems to be somewhat of the same
nature.
It may possibly be the case that some of the other blades described in
this chapter have served as the points of spear-like weapons, though,
from the hilts being discovered with so many of them, there can be no
doubt that the majority must be regarded as having been the blades
of daggers or rapiers. Among modern weapons we have, however, some
which, like the sword-bayonet, are intended to serve a double purpose;
and though there can be little doubt as to the true character of the
knife-daggers, it is hardly safe to assert that all the dagger-like
blades were without exception mounted with short hilts as poniards,
and that none were provided with straight shafts as pikes, or placed
transversely on a handle to serve as halberds or battle-axes.
The weapons described in this chapter probably range over the whole
of the Bronze Period of Britain. The knife-daggers, which have almost
exclusively been found in barrows, often associated with other weapons
formed of stone, may be regarded as among the earliest of our bronze
antiquities; while the rapier-shaped blades, though of rare occurrence
in hoards, appear to belong to a period when socketed celts were
already in use. Of the dagger-like blades, in whatever manner they were
mounted, a considerable number belong to an early period. The analogies
of the different forms with those found upon the Continent have already
from time to time been noted in the preceding pages.