Another remarkable and indeed unique instrument, in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy,[387] is shown in Fig. 106. It is like a flat celt, but has grooves and stops at the side like a palstave with a transverse edge. Below the stops are two loops. The sides below the stops are ornamented with transverse lines, and on the face here shown there is a dotted kind of cartouche below the stops, and a square compartment chequered in lozenges above them. This latter is wanting on the other face, but the corresponding cartouche below is divided into small lozenges alternately hatched and plain.
Fig. 106.—Ireland. ½ ——————— Fig. 107.—Ireland. ½ ——
Another Irish instrument of nearly the same form, but without the grooves and stops at the sides, is in the Bell Collection in the Antiquarian Museum at Edinburgh; but its exact place of finding is uncertain. It is shown in Fig. 107, and, like that last described, has each of its faces ornamented in a different manner.
Fig. 108.—Ireland. ½
Fig. 109.—Ballymena. ½
The palstaves with a transverse edge are of more common occurrence in Ireland than in England, but are even there very rare. That engraved as Fig. 108 was formerly in the collection of the Rev. Thomas Hugo, F.S.A.[388] A similar tool is figured by Vallancey.[389]
The smaller specimen shown in Fig. 109 was found near Ballymena, Co. Antrim, and is in the collection of Mr. Robert Day, F.S.A. I have one from the North of Ireland (4 inches) with the stops less distinct.