Fig. 27.—Sword found at Vik, in Norway.
The sword which is characteristic of these interments in Norway is a peculiar weapon. It is long, broad-bladed, often double-edged, and usually furnished with a short, straight guard and a triangular pommel. One which was ploughed up from a grave-mound at Vik, in Flaa Sogn in Norway, in 1837, is shown in Fig. 27 for comparison with those of the same type found in Scotland. I have said that we have no Celtic sword of this type. It is the type which prevailed in Scandinavia during the last three centuries of their heathen period. It differs from the types that preceded and succeeded it in Norway, and it differs also from the types of swords of the later Iron Age in other countries of Europe. It is specially the sword of the Norwegian Viking.
As the sword is the most characteristic object among the grave-goods of the man, the brooch is also the most characteristic object among the grave-goods of the woman. The brooch, which is constantly found in these interments in Norway, is a most peculiar ornament. It is always of brass, massive, oval, and bowl-shaped in form, and is distinguished from all other brooches that are known, not only of this, but of every other area and every other time, by the fact that it is an article of personal adornment which (though as capable of being used singly as any other form of fibula might be), is almost never found singly, but constantly occurs in pairs—the one being usually an almost exact duplicate of the other. This singular type of brooch is the special ornament of the female dress which prevailed in Norway during the last three centuries of their heathen period.[[21]] It differs entirely from the types that preceded and succeeded it; and it differs as completely from the types of the later Iron Age in all other European countries.
We therefore see that if the sword thus found in Islay had been dug up in Norway it would have taken its place as one in a great series of the ordinary Viking type, and these brooches from the woman’s grave would have matched exactly with some hundreds of similar pairs from Norwegian graves.[[22]] The whole group of objects would have corresponded with the special characters of many similar groups preserved in the Christiania Museum. The special forms of each of the members of the groups—as, for instance, the forge-tongs, the hammer, the adze, the axes,—are all forms that are abundantly represented in Viking graves there. Nicolaysen gives twenty-three instances of smithy-hammers, and seventeen instances of forge-tongs among the articles found in grave-mounds of the Viking time described by him, in Norway. Several of these grave-mounds contained more or less complete sets of smith’s tools, including anvils, chisels, files, as well as hammers and tongs. Along with an interment of this period at Thiele, in Jutland, there were two anvils of different forms, four different kinds of hammers, four varieties of pincers or forge-tongs, two chisels, two implements for drawing wire, four files, two melting pans, a pair of scales and weights, and a quantity of other implements. It was natural that the smith’s craft should hold a high place in the estimation of a people wholly devoted to the use of arms, and as famous for their skill in forging, tempering, and ornamenting weapons as for their prowess in using them. But such homelier objects as the pot and the saucepan of the Islay graves are common accompaniments of these interments in Norway, and the counterparts of the implement of black glass found in the woman’s grave may be seen in the museums of that country, and their purpose demonstrated by specimens that are actually still in use. Nicolaysen describes them as lumps of glass formed like the bottom of a bottle, and the character of the objects usually associated with them may be indicated by the contents of one grave-mound in which this implement occurs. The mound was a large one, 44½ feet long, and 73 feet broad, set round the base with large stones. It contained an interment after cremation. The ashes were gathered into a bronze vessel, 8 inches high, and 17 inches in greatest diameter, over which was inverted a pot of steatite, both vessels enclosing a quantity of iron implements cemented into a solid mass of oxidation and burnt human bones. Among the implements were a lump of glass like the bottom of a bottle, a knife-blade, the rings of a bridle-bit, an axe, a sickle-blade, a whetstone, some bronze ornaments, and an ox-horn. Alongside of the bronze vessel were a spear-head and a frying-pan of iron, 8½ inches diameter, with 7 inches of the handle remaining, and all around were large quantities of clinker nails. Here the associations of the glass implement are similar in character to its associations in the Islay graves. Its purpose is demonstrated by the facts recorded by Nicolaysen and Lorange, who state that in Mandal Amt and in several remote districts on the west coast of Norway, the women still use them for giving a gloss to their white linen caps, and generally for getting up a gloss on linen by friction.[[23]]
Back view.
Front view.
