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.
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.
