A Danish example is engraved by Worsaae,[341] and several from Germany[342] by Lindenschmit.
Iron palstaves with and without loops, some of them closely approximating to the form of Fig. 85, but others more like the ordinary Italian form of palstave, with a broad chisel-like blade, have been found in the cemetery of Hallstatt.[343] In a specimen in my own collection the side flanges are ornamented with transverse ribs, precisely like those on some of the bronze palstaves from the same locality. In one instance the upper part with the flanges is of bronze, and the lower part of the blade of iron or steel.
This form of instrument, with a section in the form of the letter H above, though easily cast, must have been extremely difficult to forge; and though we can readily trace its evolution in cast bronze, it so ill accorded with the necessary conditions for the profitable working of malleable iron that it seems soon to have disappeared when iron came into general use. The fact of the form occurring at all in iron shows that the iron instruments were made in imitation of those in bronze, and not the bronze in imitation of the iron. The same observation holds good with the iron socketed celts, spear-heads, and swords from the same cemetery.
Looped palstaves, without sufficient details being given of their types, are recorded to have been found in Harewood Square, London,[344] Oxford,[345] Devonshire,[346] and with socketed celts, near Kidwelly,[347] Caermarthen.
A looped palstave rather like Fig. 75 is said to have been found in a barrow near St. Austell,[348] Cornwall, in 1791, but no details are given.
Palstaves provided with a loop on either side are of rare occurrence in the British Islands.
A specimen found in 1871 at Penvores,[349] near Mawgan-in-Meneage, Cornwall, is engraved as Fig. 86. In character it closely resembles that from Brassington, Fig. 76, the main difference consisting in its second loop. This specimen, with another from Cornwall and two from Ireland, was exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries in 1873, and is now in the British Museum. In the same collection is another, 6½ inches long, somewhat lighter below the stop-ridge, and having the central rib less fully developed on the blade. It was found in Somersetshire in 1868, in making the Cheddar Valley line of railway. Another found in 1842, near South Petherton,[350] in the same county, is in the possession of Mr. Norris at that place.
——— Fig. 86.—Penvores. ½ ———— Fig. 87.—West Buckland. ½
Another example, shown in Fig. 87 was found at West Buckland,[351] Somersetshire, and is in the collection of Mr. W. A. Sanford. With it were discovered a torque (Fig. 468,) and a bracelet, (Fig. 481,) and also some charcoal and burnt bones, but there was no sign of any tumulus. Irish specimens will be subsequently mentioned.