The Rev. Samuel Pegge in 1787 makes some pertinent remarks respecting celts in a letter to Mr. Lort, which is published in the Archæologia.[124] He points out that from some of them having been found in barrows associated with spear-heads of flint, it is probable that some at least were military weapons. He also maintains that though the use of bronze originally preceded that of iron, yet that regard must be had to the circumstances of each country, so that it would not follow that a bronze celt found in Ireland was prior in age to the invention of iron. All that could be said was that it was older than the introduction of iron into Ireland, and when that was, no one could pretend to say. Mr. Pegge did not approve of the derivation of the name of celt from celtis or cœlare, but thought it derived from the name of the Celtic people who used the instruments. In his opinion the instruments were not Roman, especially as they were frequent in Ireland and in places where the Romans never were settled. The specimen on which he comments is of the palstave form, and, though it might be mounted as a tool, he thinks it could never have served as an axe, but it might have tipped a dart or javelin.
Douglas[125] was of opinion that the bronze arms found in this country were not Roman, but that it was more reasonable to refer them to the early inhabitants, of probably not less than two centuries b.c.
Mr. C. J. Harford, F.S.A.,[126] writing in 1801, expressed his opinion that a clue as to the uses of celts might be obtained from a consideration of similar instruments which had been brought from the South Sea Islands. “Our rude forefathers doubtless attached the celt by thongs to the handle, in the same manner as modern savages do; and, like them, formed a most useful implement or destructive weapon from these simple materials.” He thought that the metal celts might have been fabricated abroad and exported to this country, just as we have sent to the South Sea Islands an imitation in iron of the stone hatchet there in use.
Coming down to later times, we find Sir Richard Colt Hoare,[127] who discovered a few flat and flanged celts in the Wiltshire barrows, regarding them as for domestic, and not for military, architectural, or religious purposes. He thought that the flat form must be the most ancient, from which the pattern of that with the socket for the insertion of a handle was taken; for among the numerous specimens described by Mr. Lort in the Archæologia, not one of the latter pattern is mentioned as having been discovered in a barrow. As many were found in Gaul, he rather supposed that they were imported from the Continent; or, perhaps, the art of making them might have been introduced from Gaul. From the method of hafting of one of those he found (see Fig. 189), he seems to have regarded the whole of them as chisels rather than hatchets.
Sir Joseph Banks,[128] in some observations communicated to the Society of Antiquaries in 1818, on an ancient celt found near Boston, Lincolnshire, pointed out the manner in which looped palstaves could be hafted so as to serve either as axes, adzes, or chisels. He thought that they were ill adapted for any warlike purposes, and regarded them as tools such as might be used in hollowing out the trunks of trees to form canoes, and suggested that they were secured to their handles by strings tied round them in the same manner as the stone axes used in the South Sea Islands were fastened to theirs.
About the year 1816 the Rev. John Dow,[129] in some remarks on the ancient weapon denominated the celt, advocated the opinion that it was an axe, and probably a weapon of war. He also traces its connection with the stone celt, from which he considered it to have been developed.
About the same year the Rev. John Hodgson, secretary of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-on-Tyne, communicated to that society a valuable memoir in the shape of “An Enquiry into the Æra when Brass was used in purposes to which Iron is now applied,”[130] of which mention has already been made in the Introductory Chapter. He thought that celts were tools which were well adapted for use as wedges for splitting wood, or that with wooden hafts they might be used as chisels for hollowing canoes and for similar purposes, some instruments found with them being undoubtedly gouges. As to their date, he thought that bronze began to give way to iron in Britain nearly as soon as it did in Greece, and that consequently the celts, &c., found in this island belonged to an era 500, or at least 400 years, b.c.
In 1839 Mr. Rickman[131] communicated to the Society of Antiquaries a paper on the Antiquity of Abury and Stonehenge, in the notes to which he propounds the theory that the socketed celts were used merely as chisels, with hafts of wood inserted in the socket. They could be then either held in the hand or by means of a withe, like a blacksmith’s chisel, while they were struck with a stone hammer.
Among writers of comparatively modern times, the first whom I have to mention is the late Mr. G. V. Du Noyer,[132] who in 1847 communicated to the Archæological Institute two papers on the classification of bronze celts, which are still of great value and interest. He traces the gradual development in form from the bronze celt shaped like a wedge to that which is socketed, and shows that an important element in the transition from one form to the other has been the method of hafting. He also enters into the subjects of the casting and ornamentation of celts; and as in subsequent pages I shall have to refer to these as well as to the methods of hafting, I content myself here with citing Mr. Du Noyer’s papers as being worthy of all credit.