The skilful weaponer was always a person of high consideration in these days. This is curiously shewn in the law of Ethelbert which enacts that "if one man slay another, he is to pay his wergyld: but not so, if the slayer happen to be the king's weapon-smith or his messenger; in that case, he is to pay only a moderated wergyld of a hundred shillings[74]."

We have already noticed the curious custom of burying the spear-head in the same vase with the bones of the Anglo-Saxon warrior. An analogous practice has been observed in Denmark; where the sword of the hero, broken into several pieces, is placed over the mouth of the urn. An example of this kind of interment is engraved in Worsaae's "Copenhagen Museum," p. 98. Occasionally the iron sword, having been softened by the fire, was bent, and in this state deposited in the grave. The Abbé Cochet remarks:—"Cet usage des sabres ployés au feu et enterrés avec les morts est très-rare chez nous: il s'est rencontré en Allemagne, en Danemark, et en Suisse, ou M. de Bonstetton en a vu un grand nombre, en 1851, dans les sépultures de Tiefenau, près Berne. Ce savant ajoute que cette coutume, plus barbare que romaine, peu connue des Helvètes, était très-fréquente chez les peuples Scandinaves. Il existe, dit-il, au musée de Schwerin plusieurs glaives en fer que l'on croit provenir des Vendes, et qui ont été rougis dans le feu et ensuite ployés. Baehr signale le même fait dans les tombes d'Ascheraden et de Segevold[75]."

The Sheaths of the swords were commonly of wood covered with leather, as we learn from the graves; and they were sometimes mounted in bronze. Figure 2 of our fourth Plate shews an example from Wilbraham, in which the locket and chape are of bronze; and the Livonian sword, Plate [v]. fig. 10, has an ornamented bronze chape. In the British Museum is an Anglo-Saxon blade found in a grave at Battle Edge, Oxfordshire, which retains the bronze chape and locket of its scabbard. These fitments were sometimes gilt, or even of gold. Mr. Worsaae, in his "Primeval Antiquities of Denmark," page 50, has figured the gold locket of a sword-sheath, adorned with the winding pattern so characteristic of this period. Wood and leather were the ordinary materials used in the Danish scabbards. Of the sheaths formed of these substances, which have been partially preserved to our times, the most curious example is that figured by Mr. Bateman in vol. vii. of the Journal of the Archæological Association. It was found in a barrow in Derbyshire, and is constructed of thin wood overlaid with leather, the surface of the latter being covered with a pattern of alternate fillets and lozenges. A scabbard found at Strood, in Kent, was formed externally of a substance resembling shagreen. Dr. Bähr, in Die Gräber der Liven, Plate xv., has engraved a dagger-sheath, which is entirely of bronze, from Ascheraden; and in the Abbildungen von Mainzer Altherthümern for 1852, is another bronze dagger-sheath, containing an iron dagger, which was found near Treves. Several are in the British Museum. Mr. Roach Smith has another, found in the Thames;—all of them probably belonging to the period under consideration. There is also a curious type of sword-scabbard, formed entirely of bronze, which further observation may probably shew to be of Northern make. The example here engraved was found on a moor near Flasby, in Yorkshire; it contains the blade of an iron sword. Several similar ones have been discovered. One dug up at Stanwick has been presented by the Duke of Northumberland to the British Museum. Another is engraved in Dr. Wilson's "Annals of Scotland," found near Edinburgh. A fourth, from the bed of the Isis, is figured in the Archæological Journal, vol. x. p. 259. The Earl of Londesborough has another, dredged from the Thames, which differs from the rest in having been ornamented with enamelled studs. This is engraved in vol. iii. of the Collectanea Antiqua. See also the Danish example, figured in Worsaae's "Copenhagen Museum," p. 66. All these bronze scabbards have contained iron blades.

No. 6.

The Sword-Belts appear to have been usually girt round the waist; the buckles and tongues of them having often been found in the graves. These fitments are generally of bronze, sometimes of copper; and the metal is not unfrequently gilt, or embossed, or enamelled. Some buckles in the Faussett collection, found in Kent, are set with garnets. The belt was occasionally worn across the body, suspended from the right shoulder; as in the fine figure in Cotton MS., Tiberius, C. vi. fol. 9. Our woodcut, No. [17], furnishes an example of the belt girt round the waist, from an illumination in Add. MS., No. 18,043.

The Axe, as we have seen, was a characteristic weapon of the Northern nations. It is not unfrequently found in the graves of these people on the Continent, but in Anglo-Saxon interments it is of the extremest rarity. In the Wilbraham excavations, a hundred graves yielded only two axes. In the Fairford researches, not one was found in a hundred and twenty graves; and in the many Kentish barrows examined by the Earl of Londesborough in 1841, not a single specimen was obtained. The axe appears to have been of three principal forms: the "taper axe," the broad axe, and the double-axe, or bipennis. The pole-axe and the adze-axe were varieties of these. The battle-axe was also called francisca, from the favour with which it was regarded by the Franks. Isidorus (lib. xviii. c. 8.) tells us of "Secures quas Hispani ab usu Francorum per derivationem franciscas vocant."

Examples of the Anglo-Saxon taper-axe, from the Ozingell Cemetery, are given in figures 1 and 2 of our Plate. Figures 3 and 4, found in Ireland, fig. 6, from Selzen in Germany, and fig. 9, from Livonia, closely resemble the Kentish ones. Fig. 8, from Livonia, differs chiefly in having a prolongation at the back. Specimens of the taper-axe found in France are given in Plates vii., ix., and xi. of La Normandie Souterraine; and Danish examples occur at pages 68 and 96 of Worsaae's "Copenhagen Museum." Some of the axe-heads dug up in Denmark exhibit a very curious transitional construction; the blade being of copper edged with iron. Another axe in the Copenhagen Museum, "of the very earliest times of the iron period," is inscribed with runes. The axe found in the tomb of Childeric is of the "taper" form already described; it is represented in Plate ii. of Daniel's Milice Françoise. We have already, by the passages from Sidonius and Procopius, seen how the sons of Odin commenced their attack by hurling their axes at the foe. A curious illustration of this practice of throwing the axe is afforded by a charter of Canute, granting to the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, the port-dues of Sandwich, "from Pepernesse to Mearcesfleote, as far as a taper-axe can be thrown on the shore from a vessel afloat at high water[76]:" swā feorr swā mæȝ ān taper-æx beon ȝeworpen ū of ðam scipe ūp on dæt land.