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.
—— Fig. 291.—Ireland. —— Fig. 292.—Belleek. — 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.