[152]. Kvædi, a poem or song. The poem consists of seventy-one stanzas with eight verses each, and the manuscripts are late and corrupted. It is evidently made up from the lives of several warriors, and often exaggerated, e.g., that he lived 300 years, and that his height was 16 or 24 feet.
[153]. Speldi = tablet, flat piece of wood.
[154]. A form of duelling.
[155]. Professor Stephens in ‘Handbook of Old Northern Runic Monuments,’ says: “The only Northern stone known to me which bears two words, cut far apart and running in different directions. I would therefore suggest that the one name is carved later than the other. Perhaps the husband or wife died first, and shortly after the partner was called away: thus they most likely lay in the same grave, and were remembered on the same block.”
[156]. Bugge, by comparing the runic inscription on the Piræus marble lion now at Venice, comes to the conclusion that, while the damaged state of the inscription makes it impossible to decipher it as a whole, enough can, however, be read to show its approximate date, and also the home of the tracer. The snake-slings and runes on this lion in all probability are traced by a man from Sweden, who has been among the Værings or Varangians.
[157]. Bog finds belonging to the bronze age, as well as to the iron age, have been discovered in many places in the North. Those of the bronze age consist chiefly of swords, lance-heads, axes, sickles, &c. Objects of the bronze age are also found deposited under stones or in fields.
[158]. Thorsbjerg is situated south of Flensborg, in Southern Jutland. Among the objects found were fragments of swords, all double-edged, the hilts of all, with one exception, of wood, inlaid with bronze and silver, with scabbards of wood with metal mountings (on the metal bottom-piece of one scabbard is a very clear runic inscription); a sword-belt of thick leather, 41½ inches long and 3½ inches wide; buckles for sword-belts, all of bronze, with broken pieces of iron buckles; bows and arrows in a more or less complete state, the most perfect bow being about 60 inches long, but both ends are somewhat damaged, and the original length seems to have been a couple of inches more; a great number of arrow-shafts, all of similar shape, between 26–35 inches long and ½ inch thick, but the arrow-points are all destroyed, the iron having rusted; remnants of shields, flat and circular, composed of several smoothly-planed and pretty thin wooden boards, which are not equally broad all over, but become narrower towards the border:—the largest cross-measure is 42½ inches, the smallest 21 inches, the thickness of the middle boards, which as a rule are somewhat heavier than the rest, is about ½ to ¼ inch (the shield-buckles are of bronze, but broken pieces of iron ones have been found also; their cross-measure is between 6–7 inches); axes, whose blades are much decomposed by rust, with thirty good handles of ash and beechwood, which measured between 23 and 33½ inches in length; a few well-preserved spear-points, and others more or less destroyed by rust; four spear-handles, 32, 98½, 107½, and 116 inches in length; several riding and driving accoutrements; more than sixty fibulæ of many different styles; many broken pieces of gold rings, only two of which have been fitted together so as to form one complete ring; two spiral rings of bronze; a round pendant of gold; a hollow ornament of silver-mixed gold; a mass of beads; a piece of unworked amber; pincers; dice of amber; a variety of utensils and tools for domestic use, such as bowls of wood and clay, spoons, jugs, knives, &c.; two pairs of coarse woollen trousers, &c.; and several objects, the use of which is unknown.
[159]. Thirty-seven Roman coins were found altogether. The earliest is of the year 60 A.D.; the latest, 194 A.D.—1 of Nero, 1 of Vitellius, 4 of Vespasianus, 1 of Domitianus, 7 of Trajanus, 6 of Hadrianus, 1 of Aelius, 6 of Antoninus Pius, 1 of Faustina the elder, 3 of Marcus Aurelius, 2 of Faustina the younger, 3 of Commodus, and 1 of Septimius Severus, the last-named being struck in the year 194 of our era.
[160]. On a superb silver vase at the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, found in Southern Russia, is a representation of a man wearing similar trousers.
[161]. The principal objects in this find included a very great number of arrow shafts (most of them thoroughly decayed), with arrow-points of bone or iron; a remnant of a quiver of wood about 25 inches long; a mass of wooden scabbards, mostly for edged swords; 390 pieces of metal and bone mountings for the scabbards, some of silver, and one of bronze covered with silver and thin gold plates, with runes lightly traced; shield-boards, handles and buckles (180 of the latter of iron); about 150 knives, all of iron and different shapes; several remnants of belts, as well as about 40 buttons of bronze, some covered with gold, and about 60 double buttons of bronze; about 250 different pieces of buckles and other mountings of iron and bronze; about 150 different pieces of riding harness; a few horses’ bones; bronze bowls, needles, keys; scissors; scythe-blades; 1 millstone; 1 small anvil; 6 hammers; 25 iron chisels; 3 iron files; 2 iron pincers; 57 bone combs, some with svastica, and one with runes on; 4 square, 2 oblong dice; amber, glass, and mosaic beads; fibulæ of bronze, iron, silver, &c., &c.