Fig. 376.—Thames. ½
Though chiefly found in Ireland, this elongated form of scabbard has occasionally been discovered in England. Fig. 376 represents a specimen from the Thames, now preserved in the British Museum.
Another example, but slightly more curved, was found with a bronze sword at Ebberston, Yorkshire, and is in the Bateman Collection.[1157] It has been figured. The rivets for attaching it to the wooden scabbard are still in position.
This type of scabbard end has also been found in France. In the Museum of Bourges is an example about 5½ inches long, much like Fig. 376, but rather more V-shaped. Another, more like the figure, was found with a bronze sword, near Marsanne[1158] (Drôme), and a third in the tumulus of Barésia[1159] (Jura). Another was found at the end of an iron sword in a tumulus at Mons[1160] (Auvergne).
It is to be observed that the ends of some of the knife sheaths of the Early Iron Period[1161] expand in somewhat the same manner, so as to assume an anchor-like appearance.
A bronze bouterolle or scabbard tip of a very peculiar type, the sides being elongated and flattened out so as to form two sickle-shaped wings curving upwards, was exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries in 1867[1162] as having been found in Britain. A figure of it was to have appeared in the Archæologia, but has not yet been published. Perhaps there was room to doubt its English origin. Certainly the description, with the exception of the sickle-shaped wings curving upwards, agrees with a form of which several examples have been found in Germany and in France.[1163] Some of these are sharp at the end like a socketed celt, with two expanding sickle-like wings, but their purpose as chapes has not always been recognised. One from Hallstatt is described by Von Sacken[1164] as a cutting tool to be attached to a thin shaft. There are two in the Museum at Prague, found at Korno and Brasy.
One from Oberwald-behrungen is in the Museum at Würzburg. Another is at Hanover.
