I have a nearly similar palstave (6 inches long) found in Wicken Fen, Cambridgeshire. In this the blade below the stop-ridge is ½ inch thick, and above it 5/16 inch. In this as well as in that from Dorchester the stop-ridge is well below the level of the side flanges. In one found on Hollingbury Hill,[254] near Brighton, and now in the British Museum, the stop-ridge is nearly on the same level as the side flanges. It was found in the year 1825, together with four looped armillæ, a torque, and three spiral rings, which are said to have been arranged in a symmetrical manner in a depression dug in the chalk. Both the torque and the palstave were broken; and it is thought that this was done intentionally, at the time of the interment.
A similar discovery is recorded as having been made in 1794 on the Quantock Hills, when two large torques were found, within each of which was placed a palstave. In this case, however, these instruments were of the looped kind.
Winged celts of the type of Fig. 57 are of not unfrequent occurrence in Ireland, though the stop-ridge is usually less fully developed.
Fig. 58.—Colwick. ½
They also occur in France. One from Jonquières[255] (Oise) has been figured. I have a good specimen (6¼ inches) from the Seine at Paris. The wings are rather wider and the stop-ridge better defined than in the figure. One from Gasny is in the Museum at Evreux.
There are several in the Göttingen Museum, from a hoard found in that neighbourhood.
Usually the stop-ridge is nearly on the same level as the part of the side flanges on which it abuts, as will be seen in Fig. 58. This specimen was found in the gravel of the Trent at Colwick, near Nottingham, and is in my own collection. The blade immediately below the stop is fluted, and the bottom of this fluting tapers somewhat in the contrary direction to the tapering of the blade. The junction of the fluting and the face produces an elliptic ridge of elegant outline. The blade is ⅝ inch thick at this ridge, but above the stop-ridge barely ⅜ inch. It is rather thinner near the stop-ridge than somewhat higher up, so that the blade would be as it were dovetailed into the handle, if tightly tied to it. I have specimens of much the same type from Attleborough, Norfolk (6⅜ inches), Newbury, Berks (6¾ inches), and Hay, Brecknockshire (7⅛ inches). A curious variety of this type found at Monach-ty-gwyn,[256] near Aberdovey, has on the bottom of one of the recesses for the handle a number of sunk diagonal lines crossing each other so as to form a kind of lattice pattern. It seems to me that though this cross-hatching occurs on only one face of the palstave, it was intended rather as a means of giving it a grip on the handle than as an ornament, for when hafted this part of the instrument must have been concealed by the wood. Mr. Barnwell, however, regards it in the light of an ornament.
Plain palstaves of this character are of not unfrequent occurrence in the North of France. I have one from a hoard found at Bernay, near Abbeville. With it were palstaves of different varieties, but none of them provided with loops. The form also occurs occasionally in Holland.