Head-Ring. Roxburghshire.
The woodcut represents an exceedingly beautiful bronze relic, apparently of the class of head rings, in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, which was discovered in the year 1747, about seven feet below the surface, when digging for a well, at the east end of the village of Stitchel, in the county of Roxburgh. It bears a resemblance in some respects to relics of the same class in the Christiansborg Palace, yet nothing exactly similar to it has yet been found among Scandinavian relics; while some of its ornamental details closely correspond to those which characterize the British horse furniture and other native relics of this period. One of its most remarkable peculiarities is, that it opens and shuts by means of a hinge, being clasped when closed by a pin which passes through a double catch at the line intersecting the ornament; and so perfect is it that it can still be opened and secured with ease. It is probable that this also should rank among the ornaments of the head, though it differs in some important respects from any other object of the same class. The oval which it forms is not only too small to encircle the head, but it will be observed from the engraving that its greatest length is from side to side, the internal measurements being five and nine-tenth inches by five and one-tenth inches.
Montfaucon, Vallancey, and other continental and Irish antiquaries, have traced the original of the lunar head-ornaments to the well-known head-dress so common in Egyptian sculpture, and, following out their favourite Druidical theories, have assumed them to be the special badge of the Druid priests.[495] There are not wanting, however, traces of ancient customs among the races of Northern Europe which would lead us rather to assign them as a part of female adornment, as Mr. Birch has already done to the analogous gorgets, so nearly resembling them in form.[496] The maiden coronet, or tire for the hair, in use among the northern races of Europe, and its correspondence to the snood or cockernonie of Scottish maidens, are very happily illustrated in Mr. Robert Jamieson's notes to "Child Axelvold."[497] One of the most touching passages of the old northern ballad derives its chief beauty from the allusion to the ancient usage of the maiden head-dress,—
"Lang stuid she, the proud Elinè,
Nor answer'd ever a word;
Her cheeks sae richly-red afore,
Grew haw as ony eard.
She doffed her studded stemmiger,
And will of rede she stuid:
'I bure nae bairn, sae help me God,
But and our Lady gude!'"
To tyne her snood is still a sufficiently intelligible phrase in Scotland for the loss which forfeits the privileges of a maiden, without admitting to those of a matron. The Greek poets also abound with allusions to the nuptial ceremony of taking off the bride's coronet,[498] and the Jews still preserve a similar usage; so that in this, as in so many other northern customs, we recover additional traditions of the Asiatic origin of the Teutonic races.
FOOTNOTES:
[486] Barry's Orkney, p. 225.
[487] Vol. iii. Plate V.