a prolongation of the broad end of the blade for inserting into a haft. These weapons are also occasionally found elaborately ornamented, according to the prevailing style of the era. They generally retain the bronze rivets : thereby showing that their handles had been of wood or horn, and not of metal, as in many of the swords and daggers of the same era found in Denmark. The annexed figure represents a fine example of the Scottish bronze dagger, found at Pitcaithly, Perthshire, and now in the valuable collection of Mr. Bell of Dungannon. It measures fully six inches in length, by two inches in greatest breadth.

But the most characteristic and beautiful of all the relics of the Bronze Period is the leaf-shaped sword, which has been frequently found with both point and edge as sharp as when it first was used. The examples already referred to, found, in 1846, on the south side of Arthur's Seat, near Edinburgh, during the construction of the "Queen's Drive," are equal to any that could be produced. The larger of the two is one of the finest ever found in Scotland, measuring twenty-six and a quarter inches in extreme length, and one and three quarter inches at the broadest part of the blade. The form is exceedingly simple, though graceful and well proportioned; but a small engraving conveys a very imperfect idea of the weapon when held in the hand.' The section of the sword shows the art with which it is

1 Ante, p. 352.

modelled, so as to secure the indispensable requisite of strength along with a fine edge, the blade swelling in the middle, and tapering off towards the line which runs round the entire blade within the edge. The metal is too brittle to resist violent contact with any hard body; but if the edge of a bronze weapon is hammered till it begins to crack, and then ground, it acquires a hardness, and takes an edge not greatly inferior to the ordinary kinds of steel. Several of the bronze swords in the Scottish Museum are broken in two, and some of them imperfect most of such having been found with sepulchral deposits. One of these was discovered, alongside of a cinerary urn, in a tumulus at Memsie, Aberdeenshire. Another lay beside a human skeleton, in a cist under Carlochan Cairn, one of the largest sepulchral cairns in Galloway, which stood on the top of a high hill on the lands of Chappelerne, parish of Carmichael; it was demolished in the year 1776 for the purpose of furnishing materials to enclose a plantation. From such discoveries we are led to infer that one of the last honours paid to the buried warrior was to break his well-proved weapon and lay it at his side, ere the cist was closed, or the inurned ashes deposited in the grave, and his old companions in arms piled over it the tumulus or memorial cairn. No more touching or eloquent tribute of honour discloses itself to us amid those curious records of ages long past. The Elf-bolt and the stone axe of the older barrow, speak only of the barbarian anticipation of eternal warfare beyond the grave of skull-beakers and draughts of bloody wine, such as the untutored savage looks forward to in his dreams of heaven. But the broken sword of the buried chief seems to tell of a warfare accomplished, and of expected rest. Doubtless the future which he anticipated bore faint enough resemblance to the "life and immortality"

since revealed to men; but the broken sword speaks in unmistakable language of elevation and progress, and of nobler ideas acquired by the old Briton, when he no longer deemed it indispensable to bear his arms with him to the elysium of his wild creed.

This graceful custom would appear to have been peculiar to Britain, or it has escaped the attention of northern antiquaries. Mr. Worsaae makes no mention of it in describing corresponding Scandinavian weapons, though he refers to a practice of the later pagan Norsemen which implies its absence in the iron period," Skilful armourers were then in great request, and although in other cases the Danish warrior would have thought it unbecoming and dangerous to disturb the peace of the dead, he did not scruple to break open a barrow or a grave, if by such means he could obtain the renowned weapon which had been deposited beside the hero who had wielded it."1 Thus we learn that from the remotest times even to our own day, the northern warrior has esteemed his sword the most sacred emblem of military honour. In later ages the leaders of medieval chivalry gave names to their favoured weapons, the Troubadours celebrated their virtues with all the extravagance of Romaunt fable, and still the soldier's favourite sword is laid on his bier when his comrades bear him to his rest.

Associations with these ancient weapons of an altogether different nature have been suggested, chiefly in consequence of some resemblance of the indented mouldings on the bronze swords to the ribs and grooves frequently found on the modern Malay Creess. The design of the latter, it is well known, is to retain poison, and it has been supposed, not without some appearance of probability, that such practices were not unknown to the ancient Caledonian. This has been already referred to

1 Primeval Antiquities, p. 49.

as the purpose which perhaps first suggested those rude incised lines on the earlier axe-blades, afterwards turned to account as a means of tasteful decoration; and is abundantly consistent with the practice of many semibarbarous nations. In the ancient Irish poem on the death of Oscar, printed in the first volume of the Royal Irish Academy's Transactions, the spear of Carbre is said to be poisoned, seemingly in no figurative sense. The era of the bronze sword is of an earlier date; but notwithstanding the graceful symbolism apparent in some of the sepulchral rites, we have little reason for assuming that there was anything in the degree of civilisation of that period incompatible with such savage practices.

Fewer primitive relics of armour or of personal covering have been found than of weapons of war, as might naturally be expected among a people whose partial civilisation could not so far overcome the natural habits acquired in the chase and the sudden foray, as to induce them to cumber themselves with any great amount of defensive accoutrements. Skins and furs no doubt formed their chief articles of clothing and protection, and moreover, abundantly admitted of the degree of ornament which the taste indicated in the decoration of their weapons would lead them to aim at.

Helmets or head-pieces of any kind belonging to the native Pagan era are of extremely rare occurrence. In a tumulus at Drimnamucklach, Argyleshire, pieces of a rudely adorned bronze helmet were found, and are now in the possession of Mr. Campbell, the proprietor of the estate. Gordon describes another example found in a cairn near the water of Cree, Galloway, but it was so cracked and brittle; and probably also so rudely handled,

1 Itiner. Septent. Appendix, p. 172. Two helmets are said to be preserved by Lord Rollo at Duncrub House, Perthshire, which were dug up in the neighbourhood along with various bronze relics.-Vide New Statist. Acc. vol. x. p. 717.

that it fell to pieces on being removed. There is every reason to believe that this piece of defensive armour was not generally used among the native Britons, nor indeed among the Scandinavian warriors of the Bronze Period. Only one imperfect fragment of a bronze helmet exists. in the ample collections of the Christiansborg Palace at Copenhagen. Diodorus refers to the brazen helmet of the Gauls, but both Herodian and Xiphiline speak of the Britons as destitute of this defensive head-piece even at the late period to which they refer. Their matted locks, which they decorated with the large and massive hairpins of gold, silver, or bronze, so frequently found with

other relics, sufficed them alike for protection and ornament. This custom was probably common to all the northern races. But the indispensable defensive armour of the old British warrior was his shield, made entirely of bronze, or of wood covered with metal, and sometimes adorned with plates of silver and even of gold.

The ancient bronze shield is frequently met with both in Britain and Ireland, and forms one of the most ingenious specimens of primitive metallurgic art. In 1780 a singular group of five or six bronze bucklers was discovered in a peat-moss, six or seven feet below the