Fig. 353.—Edinburgh. ¼.
A sword with a large pommel (24 inches), closely resembling Fig. 353, was found, together with two other sword blades (one 25 inches with slots), a scabbard end, and two bronze pins, with large circular flat heads, at Tarves,[1098] Aberdeenshire. Some of these were presented to the British Museum by the Earl of Aberdeen. There is a recess on the hilt-plate for the reception of the horn or bone of the hilt, which was fastened by three rivets still remaining.
Another sword, the blade 22 inches long, the handle, including a round hollow pommel, 5½ inches, was found in Skye, and is engraved in “Pennant’s Tour.”[1099] It shows four rivet-holes arranged like those in the sword from Arthur’s Seat, so that the hilt was probably formed as usual of horn or wood and not of bronze.
A few other swords with pommels to their hilts have been found in Scotland. That shown in Fig. 353 was found in Edinburgh,[1100] with, it is said, thirteen or fourteen more, a pin, and ring, and a kind of annular button, of bronze. It is now in the Antiquarian Museum at Edinburgh. The hilt appears to have been added to the hilt-plate by a subsequent process of casting. The pommel has been cast over a core of clay, which it still retains within it. Another of the swords (24¼ inches) has the hilt-plate pierced for six rivets. Two others which have been examined are imperfect.
Mr. Joseph Anderson, who has described this find, points out that this hilt must have “been cast in a matrix modelled from a sword which had the grip made up of two convex plates attached on either side of the handle plate, and their ends covered by a hollow pommel”—in fact, from such a sword as that from Tarves, already mentioned. He also observes that the holes in the hilt are not rivet-holes, and thinks that they may have been caused by wooden pins used to hold the clay core in position, for the handle as well as the pommel is hollow. I am rather doubtful as to the accuracy of this theory, as such pins would, I think, produce blow-holes in the metal in casting. There may, however, have been clay projections from the inner core which would leave holes such as these, into which studs of wood, bone, or horn might afterwards be inserted by way of ornament and to add firmness to the grip. For details of the finding of from thirty to forty bronze swords in Scotland, the reader is referred to Mr. Anderson’s paper.
The bronze leaf-shaped swords from Ireland, of which nearly or quite a hundred, either perfect or fragmentary, are preserved in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, have been treated of at some length by the late Sir William Wilde,[1101] whose Catalogue the reader may consult with advantage. Ingeneral appearance they closely resemble the swords from the sister countries, and vary in length from about eighteen to thirty inches. The blades are usually rounded on the faces, or have a faintly marked median ridge, and are slightly fluted along the edges. This fluting or bevelling is sometimes bounded by a raised ridge. The form with a rounded rib along the middle of the blade is almost unknown. There is considerable variation in the form of the end of the hilt-plate, in which occasionally there is a deep V-shaped notch, or several smaller notches. The most common termination is that like a fish-tail as seen in Fig. 354. The number of rivet-holes is various, ranging from four to eleven. There are occasionally slots[1102] in the hilt-plate and in the wings at the base of the blade.
They have been found in most parts of the kingdom.
A common type of Irish sword is shown in Fig. 354 from a specimen found at Newtown Limavady, Co. Derry, in 1870. One wing of the fish-tail termination is wanting and has been restored in the sketch. The nine rivet-holes seem to have been cast and not drilled, though they may have been slightly counter-sunk subsequently to the casting. The hilt-plate is slightly fluted, perhaps with the view of steadying the hilt.
