Fig. 377.—Isle of Harty. 1/1
The fact that traces of wooden sheaths to daggers have been found in the Wiltshire and other barrows has already been mentioned, but no bronze fittings have been found with them. There are, however, some objects which may have served either as the mouth-pieces of sheaths for daggers or small knives, or as ferrules for their hilts.
One of these from the Harty hoard is shown full size in Fig. 377.
Another of identically the same character, but rather shorter, was found, with a bronze knife or dagger and numerous other articles, at Marden,[1165] Kent. It was regarded by Mr. Beale Poste as the mounting of the top of a dagger sheath formed of leather.
Another was found with various other relics near Abergele,[1166] Denbighshire.
Some elongated loops formed of jet are of a shape that would have served for the mouth-pieces of sword scabbards, but whether so fragile a substance was used for such a purpose may well be questioned. They may have been merely ornamental. One about 3 inches long, found in Scotland,[1167] has been regarded as a clasp for a belt. Possibly these objects in bronze may, after all, be of the nature of slides or clasps.
Another loop, more rounded at the ends, found in the peat at Newbury,[1168] Berks, has been described as a slider for securing some portion of the dress, or for passing over a belt. Not improbably this is their true interpretation. Some outer slides are described at p. 404.
Some bronze objects of nearly similar form, but about 3 inches in length, found with late Celtic remains, have been regarded as the cross-guards[1169] of daggers or knives.
In my own collection is a fine bronze sword from Denmark with broad side flanges to the hilt plate, on the blade of which is a bronze loop about ¼ inch wide, rebated for the reception of wood, but without any rivet-holes. Each face presents four parallel headings. For some time, in common with some Danish antiquaries, I regarded this loop as the mouth-piece of a scabbard, for which it appears well adapted; but I now find that such a view is erroneous, and that this loop is the ferrule for receiving the ends of the plates of wood or horn which formed the hilt. For in the barrow of Lydshöi,[1170] near Blidstrup, Frederiksborg, was a bronze sword with a similar ferrule upon it, and the remains of the plates of horn beneath it still in position. One of these Danish ferrules is of gold.[1171] A sheath[1172] from a barrow at Hvidegaard, made of birch wood with an outer and inner casing of leather, has a leather band for the mouth-piece, and a leather eye for receiving the belt. Some small sheaths for bronze knives and for a flint dagger found at the same time are simply of leather.