CHAPTER X.
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.
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.