Another Irish specimen (3 inches) is in the British Museum. In the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy are several varying in length from 2⅝ inches to 5¼ inches. They are classed by Wilde[390] among the chisels. In describing the various forms illustrated by the figures, I have from time to time called attention to the analogies which they present with other European forms, and it is hardly necessary to make any broad comparison of British palstaves and winged celts with those of other European countries. It would indeed be a difficult task to attempt, as in each country, if not in several districts in each country, the instruments of this kind are characterised by some local peculiarity.
Perhaps it will be more instructive to mention certain continental forms which are conspicuous by their absence in Britain.
We have not, for instance, the southern French form with a kind of contracted waist and broad side flanges or rounded wings in the middle of the blade; nor, again, the long narrow form almost resembling a marrow spoon; nor that with the almost circular blade, much like an ancient mirror. Nor have we the German form, with the V-shaped stop-ridge, nor that in which the stop-ridge forms a circular collar above a blade with beadings along the sides. Nor have we the common Italian form, with the blade like a long spud; nor, again, the narrow Scandinavian form, which is often highly decorated.
And yet, in comparing the instruments described in the present chapter with those of neighbouring countries, and especially of France, it will at once be remarked that, as might have been reasonably expected, the closest analogies are to be observed between some of those of England and France, while in the more peculiarly Scottish and Irish types the resemblances are more remote. It must, however, be borne in mind that there is good evidence in the shape of moulds and bronze-founders’ hoards, such as will subsequently be mentioned, to prove that these instruments were cast in various parts of this country; so that, though some palstaves may be of foreign origin, yet, as a rule, it was the fashion of the objects rather than the objects themselves for which the inhabitants of Britain were indebted to foreign intercourse. Even in the area now embraced by France there does not appear to have been any single centre of manufacture, but, taken as a group, the palstaves of the South, the North, and the North-west of France present some distinguishing characteristics. The same is the case with the socketed celts of that country, the English representatives of which will be discussed in the next chapter.
CHAPTER V.
SOCKETED CELTS.
The class of celts cast in such a manner as to have a socket for receiving the haft is numerously represented in the British Isles. In this form of instrument the haft was actually imbedded in the blade, whereas in the case of the flat and flanged celts, and of the so-called palstaves, the blade was imbedded in the handle, so that the terms, “the recipient” and “the received,” originally given to the two classes by Dr. Stukeley, are founded on a well-marked distinction, and are worthy of being rescued from oblivion.
That the recipient class is of later introduction than the received is evident from several considerations. In the first place, a flat blade not only approaches most nearly in form to the stone hatchets or celts which it was destined to supersede, but it also requires much less skill in casting than the blade provided with a socket. For casting the flat celts there was, indeed, no need of a mould formed of two pieces; a simple recess of the proper form cut in a stone, or formed in loam, being sufficient to give the shape to a flat blade of metal, which could be afterwards wrought into the finished form by hammering. And secondly, as will subsequently be seen, a gradual development can be traced from the flat celt, through those with flanges and wings, to the palstave form, with the wings hammered over so as to constitute two semicircular sockets, one on each side of the blade; while on certain of the socketed celts flanges precisely similar to those of the palstaves have been cast by way of ornament on the sides, and what was thus originally a necessity in construction has survived as a superfluous decoration. There is at least one instance known of the intermediate form between a palstave with pocket-like recesses on each side of a central plate and a celt with a single socket. In the museum at Trent[391] there is an instrument in which the socket is divided throughout its entire length into two compartments with a plate between, and, as Professor Strobel says, resembling a palstave with the wings on each side united so as to form a socket on each side. The evolution of the one type from the other is thus doubly apparent, and it is not a little remarkable that though palstaves with the wings bent over are, as has already been stated, of rare occurrence in the British Islands, yet socketed celts, having on their faces the curved wings in a more or less rudimentary condition, are by no means unfrequently found. The inference which may be drawn from this circumstance is that the discovery of the method of casting socketed celts was not made in Britain but in some other country, where the palstaves with the converging wings were abundant and in general use, and that the first socketed celts employed in this country, or those which served as patterns for the native bronze-founders, were imported from abroad.