Fig. 33.—Oval Bowl-shaped Brooch, found in a cist in the Longhills, Wick.
Another pair of these oval bowl-shaped brooches from Caithness is also in the National Museum. They were found in a cist in the top of a natural mound of gravel called the Longhills, on the north side of the river, a little above the bridge of Wick, in 1840. Although found together they differ in pattern, one being nearly similar to the Tiree brooch, while the other (Fig. [33]) differs from all the Scottish specimens in having eight bosses of open work arranged round the central boss. They retain portions of the twisted strands of fine silver wire which lay in the channeled depressions of the upper part.
Fig. 34.—Sword found in Rousay (39¼ inches in length).
Passing from Caithness to Orkney, we find abundant evidence of the same form of burial associated with objects of similar character. At Sweindrow, in the island of Rousay, there is a field in which there are many graves, from which objects of iron were occasionally turned up by the plough many years ago, when the soil had been less frequently disturbed. In the year 1826 a fine specimen of the peculiar type of sword associated with these burials (Fig. [34]) was thus turned up by the plough in close proximity to the spot where previously the iron boss of a shield had been similarly discovered.[[32]] The sword is a long, broad-bladed, double-edged weapon, with short straight guard and triangular pommel. It measures 3 feet 3¼ inches in total length, the blade being 2 feet 8 inches in length. The guard is 5 inches in length and 1¼ inch in depth. The grip measures 3¼ inches in length. The pommel is 4¼ inches in width and 3 inches in height. The blade, which is 2⅛ inches wide at the hilt, has been in the scabbard at the time of its deposit, and blade and scabbard are now converted into a mass of oxidation. The scabbard has been made of thin laths of wood, the fibre of which is still visible, covered in some places with leather. There are also some remains of the side-plates of bone or horn which made up the grip, and the gilt metallic mounting which adorned both ends of the grip still remains. The ornament closely resembles that of the silver mounting of the rim of a horn or beaker (Fig. [35]), which was dug up at Burghead some time previous to 1826, and is now in the Museum. But the ornament of the sword has a distinctly zoomorphic feeling, and still more closely resembles the decoration of a similar mounting of the hilt of a sword of the Viking type dug up at Islandbridge, near Dublin, and preserved in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy.
Fig. 35.—Silver Mounting of a Drinking-Horn found at Burghead
(2¾ inches diameter).
Except in the island of Westray (in which seven specimens have occurred), there is no record of the discovery of the oval bowl-shaped brooches elsewhere in Orkney. I shall describe the remarkable group of graves in Westray in connection with the phenomena of burial, merely remarking here that the presence of these brooches and this type of sword carries the area of this form of burial into the Orkney Islands.
Two oval bowl-shaped brooches, having the usual mark of cloth on the inside of their inner shells, are also in the museum at Lerwick. They were found at Clibberswick, in the north end of the island of Unst, the most northerly island of the Shetland group. Along with them there were found a plain silver bracelet, two glass beads ornamented with twisted streaks of white and blue, and a trefoil-shaped brooch of a type which is also peculiarly Scandinavian, covered with a zoomorphic ornament consisting of dragonesque forms, whose feet twist under and grasp parts of their bodies.[[33]]