FIG. 14.
a. A SECTION NOT UNLIKE THAT
OF A SPEAR-HEAD.
b. A RHOMBOID SECTION WITH
CONCAVE SIDES.
A glance at Type A, especially as seen in full length in Plate VII., shows us at once that it is a transitional form, and that it has grown out of an ogival dagger, similar to those given on Plate V. The butt is of the same shape, being a flattened semicircle, with the horizontal radii considerably longer than the vertical. The upper part of the blade, too, is of the same form, and the parallel incised lines are survivals of the grooves already described. These show that the prototype was of ogival shape. In two points only does it differ from the ancestral form: the blade has been lengthened considerably, till its form is of rather an unnatural shape, while at the other end a tang, shaped to fit the hand, and with flanged edges, has been cast in one piece with the blade. Here we have a leaf-shaped sword, it is true, but with the greatest breadth relatively near to the butt, and the tang flanged and with rivet holes to enable the wooden or horn sides to be attached to form the hilt. The section is somewhat rhomboidal.
Now it has long been realised that swords of these types had been evolved somewhere in the Danube basin, and it has been suggested that this had taken place in the south Danubian region.[270] It becomes important, therefore, to determine whereabouts in the Celtic cradle these types originated. Details of the distribution of this and of other types will be discussed in the next chapter; here it will be sufficient to summarise. As far as I have been able to ascertain, six specimens only of this type are known, and one of these is so unlike the others that we must look upon it as a later variant. Of the five, one was found in the Friuli, at the head of the Adriatic, one in a tomb in Schleswig-Holstein, while the other three were found somewhere in Hungary. Of these the exact sites at which two were found are unknown, but the third is said to have been dredged out of the Danube near Buda-Pest.[271]
FIG. 15.
SPINDLE-
SHAPED
SECTION.
We may, I think, conclude from this that it was in the plain of Hungary, where the Nordic steppe-folk were living in relative purity, still leading, perhaps, a nomadic life, that these swords were developed. The origin seems to have been in the plain rather than in the mountain zone, though subsequent types have been found frequently in the latter. It is the Hungarian plain, then, we must consider as the centre of dispersal, and, as far as possible, Hungarian rather than other examples will be taken as the true types, of which others will be considered as variants.
Now that the tang for the hilt had been cast in one piece with the blade, and the attachment of the hilt no longer depended solely on the row of rivets at the butt of the blade, there was no necessity for this butt to be of so great a breadth. As a result we find in Type B the butt has become approximately semi-circular, with the horizontal and vertical radii equal. The flange on the sides of the tang remained, though in some cases it became lighter and not so sharply modelled. The blades of this type usually diminish gradually from below the butt to the point, but occasionally we find a slight broadening of the blade into the true leaf-shaped form. The numerous parallel grooves of Type A disappear, and in their place appear a few, generally three, narrow grooves, very close together, parallel to both sides of the blade, and dividing it into three almost equal strips. Towards the butt these grooves bend outwards to the edge, forming an almost perfect quadrant. Sometimes these grooves are combined into one, and result in sharp lines dividing the blade into three; in these cases the central third is much thicker than the two sides, and the section is not unlike that of a spear-head. Occasionally we find these parallel lines entirely absent, and the blade sloping to a median ridge, thus forming in section a rhomboid with concave sides; this variant is more common in the north, and seems to be a later local development.