See Lehmann (H.), Brünne und Helm im ags. Beowulfliede (Göttingen Diss., Leipzig; cf. Wülker, Anglia, VIII, Anzeiger, 167-70; Schulz, Engl. Stud., IX, 471); Hoops' Reallexikon, s.v. Helm; Baldwin Brown, III, 194-6; Falk, Altnord. Waffenkunde, 155-73; Stjerna, Hjälmar och svärd, 1907, as above: but the attempt of Stjerna to arrange the helmets he depicts in a

chronological series is perilous, and depends on a dating of the Benty Grange helmet which is by no means generally accepted.

The Corslet. This in Beowulf is made of rings[[781]], twisted and interlaced by hand[[782]]. As stated above, the fragments of the only known Anglo-Saxon byrnie were not of this type, but rather intended to have been sewn "upon a doublet of strong cloth[[783]]." Byrnies were of various lengths, the longer ones reaching to the middle of the thigh (byrnan sīde, Beow. 1291, cf. loricæ longæ, síðar brynjur).

See Falk, 179; Baldwin Brown, III. 194.

The Spear. Spear and shield were the essential Germanic weapons in the days of Tacitus, and they are the weapons most commonly found in Old English tombs. The spear-shaft has generally decayed, analysis of fragments surviving show that it was frequently of ash[[784]]. The butt-end of the spear was frequently furnished with an iron tip, and the distance of this from the spear-head, and the size of the socket, show the spear-shaft to have been six or seven feet long, and three-quarters of an inch to one inch in diameter.

See Falk, 66-90; Baldwin Brown, III, 234-41.

The Shield. Several round shields were preserved on the Gokstad ship, and in the deposits of an earlier period at Thorsbjerg and Nydam. These are formed of boards fastened together, often only a quarter of an inch thick, and not strengthened or braced in any way, bearing out the contemptuous description of the painted German shield which Tacitus puts into the mouth of Germanicus[[785]]. It was, however, intended that the shield should be light. It was easily pierced, but, by a rapid twist, the foe's sword could be broken or wrenched from his hand. Thus we are told how Gunnar gave his shield a twist, as his adversary thrust his sword through it, and so snapped off his sword at the hilt[[786]]. The shield was held by a bar, crossing a hole some four inches wide cut in the middle. The hand was protected by a hollow conical boss or umbo, fixed to the wood by its brim, but projecting considerably. In England the wood of the shield has always perished, but a large number of bosses have been preserved. The boss seems to have been called rond, a word which is also used for the shield as a whole. In Beowulf, 2673, Gifts of Men, 65, the meaning "boss" suits rond best, also in rand sceal on scylde, fæst fingra gebeorh (Cotton. Gnomic Verses, 37-8). But the original meaning of rand must have been the circular rim round the edge, and this

meaning it retains in Icelandic (Falk, 131). The linden wood was sometimes bound with bast, whence scyld (sceal) gebunden, lēoht linden bord (Exeter Gnomic Verses, 94-5).

See Falk (126-54); Baldwin Brown, III, 196-204; Pfannkuche (K.), Der Schild bei den Angelsachsen, Halle Dissertation, 1908.

The Bow is a weapon of much less importance in Beowulf than the spear. Few traces of the bow have survived from Anglo-Saxon England, though many wooden long-bows have been preserved in the moss-finds in a remarkably fine state. They are of yew, some over six feet long, and in at least one instance tipped with horn. The bow entirely of horn was, of course, well known in the East, and in classical antiquity, but I do not think traces of any horn-bow have been discovered in the North. It was a difficult weapon to manage, as the suitors of Penelope found to their cost. Possibly that is why Hæthcyn is represented as killing his brother Herebeald accidentally with a horn-bow: he could not manage the exotic weapon.