It is less easy to assign a use for another of the Norrie's Law relics, engraved here half the size of the original. Mr. Albert Way describes it as "a plate of silver, enriched with singular scrolls or foliated ornaments in very high relief. Three of these remain; there was obviously a fourth, connected with the corresponding scroll by a narrow neck, the plate being formed with an irregular oblong opening in the centre. Dimensions of the plate, four and a half inches by four inches; length of the opening, two and a half inches; projection of the ornaments more than a quarter of an inch. They appear to have been cast, and are formed with great elegance of outline and skilful workmanship." It is obvious that the plate when complete had not been uniform. It would now be vain to speculate on its original purpose, though this appears to be the object described in Mr. Buist's report as the mouthpiece of a sword-scabbard; his whole ideas having obviously been modified by the local belief in the "suit of silver armour" in which the mounted warrior was interred. There is manifestly but little correspondence in it either to a modern sword-guard or the mouthpiece of its scabbard, and it bears not the slightest resemblance to any known appendage of ancient weapons.
The remaining relics of this hoard include two fragments of armillæ, formed of plain silver plates, beaten out so as to present a convex outer face; a double hook, one inch in length, in form of an S; a narrow band, like a riband of silver, about half an inch in width, and upwards of a yard long: one end, which appears perfect, tapering to a point; a fragment of fine interlaced silver; and a spiral silver ring, almost precisely similar in form to one of bronze found in a cist near Edinburgh, and figured in a former chapter.[551] It weighs 120 grains, and is ornamented only with a minute serrated pattern wrought along part of the inner edge of the spiral bar of silver towards either extremity.
Such are the few but valuable relics which have escaped the crucible, amounting altogether only to about twenty-four ounces out of the estimated 400 ounces of pure silver found in the Norrie's Law tumulus by its unprincipled ravisher. That they exhibit the high progress attained by native artists at the period to which they belong can hardly admit of a doubt. The analogy which the forms both of the fibulæ and bodkins suggest—so clearly traceable to types of most frequent occurrence in Ireland—fully corresponds to the historic origin of the races and the arts of Scotland, already traced out in the previous chapter. Their peculiar devices, found only on the earliest Christian monuments of Scotland, no less distinctly refer these remarkable relics to that native transition-period from the fourth to the eighth century, when Pagan and Christian rites were obscurely mingled; and the revelations of the old sepulchral mound shew that the anticipations of the dying warrior still derived their most vivid power more from the heathen valhalla than the Christian paradise. We shall not perhaps greatly err in limiting the era of the Norrie's Law tumulus from the third to the sixth century. We must even allow for the lapse of a sufficient interval between the last surviving witness of the deposition of its treasures, and the advent of that new creed and system which finally abolished the sacredness that formed the old safeguard of the Pagan treasures of the dead. But in addition to every other cause of regret for the barbarous destruction of these beautiful examples of the arts as practised in Scotland a thousand years ago, we have reason to believe that an opportunity was lost—perhaps the only one that can ever occur—of ascertaining the precise epoch, and even the meaning of the remarkable Scottish symbols with which they were decorated. Mr. Buist remarks in his report,—"A considerable number of coins, now wholly lost sight of, and said to have borne these symbolic markings, were found along with the armour at Norrie's Law, and about forty of the same kind were found in an earthen pot at Pittenweem in 1822. It is said that these were destitute of inscription or written character." No great importance can be attached to such vague descriptions of coins chiefly derived from the recollections of persons probably little familiar with any but those of the present currency. But of the fact of coins having been found no doubt can be entertained. Nor is this the only instance of such being met with in a Scottish tumulus, though hitherto they have only been discovered to be destroyed.
The most primitive form of Scottish coinage is evidently the simple gold pellets usually marked with a cross in relief. The two examples engraved here, the size of the originals, are from the remarkable hoard discovered at Cairnmuir, Peeblesshire, in 1806.[552] They resemble two segments of a sphere irregularly joined, and appear to have been cast in a mould. Forty of the same simple class of early currency were found, along with what appears to have been a gold funicular torc, in the parish of Dolphinton, Lanarkshire, and marked, like those of Cairnmuir, "with the impression of a star."[553] Little hesitation can be felt in assigning to the same class a discovery, in the parish of Dunnichen, Forfarshire, of "a number of small gold bullets, which seem to have been the current coin of the times when they were formed."[554] A correspondent describes to me a quantity of silver coins found about two years since in a cist exposed on the demolition of a cairn on the lands of Sauchie, Stirlingshire: "They were so thin that they readily broke in the workmen's fingers; they seemed struck through from the back, and had figures only on the one side; some of them had loops to hang them by." The whole of these are now dispersed or lost, their ignorant discoverers having seemingly contented themselves with the interesting experiment of trying how readily they could break them in pieces. There can be little doubt from the description that they were silver bracteates; and if so, their loss is greatly to be regretted. A cairn of peculiar construction is described in the Statistical Account of the parish of Garvoch, Kincardineshire, within which was found a silver brooch of ancient workmanship, and towards the margin upwards of twenty coins, but these would appear to have been a later deposit, as they included one of Alexander I., and another of Robert Bruce.[555] The valuable numismatic collection of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland includes a few gold coins of the Gaulish type, believed to have been found in Scotland, but their history or exact locality is unknown. Mr. Lindsay, in his "View of the Coinage of Scotland," justly remarks on the neglect of the investigation of this interesting subject, which, until the publication of his work, had been carried no farther back than the reign of William the Lion. To this he has added the history of upwards of a century, and made us familiar with some interesting early types. The earliest of these are of the Crux type of Ethelred II., of whose coins they are evidently an imitation, and are ascribed to the Norwegian jarls of the Hebrides. In the autumn of 1782, some men engaged in clearing away the foundation of an old wall in the island of Tyrie, one of the Hebrides, found an urn containing from fifteen to twenty ounces of Anglo-Saxon silver coins in fine preservation, ninety of these are now in the Scottish Society's collection, and include silver pennies of Athelstan, Eadmund, Eadred, Eadwy, Eadgar, and Eadweard the Martyr. In the present year, 1850, a large hoard of Anglo-Saxon coins was discovered in the Isle of Skye: upwards of ninety fell into the hands of one individual, and a much greater number were dispersed. By far the greater number are stykas of Eadgar. Barry mentions two horns found at Caldale near Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, containing three hundred coins of Canute, including forty-two varieties of mints, with silver fibulæ and other relics, already described along with a more recent discovery of a similar kind.[556] To these also should be added the occasional discovery of Cufic coins, inscribed in the old Arabic character, and ranging from the latter end of the seventh to the close of the tenth century. One of these, a fine gold coin, was discovered in 1823, at a considerable depth, in digging a grave in the churchyard of Monymusk, Aberdeenshire.[557] In all the discoveries referred to it is of special importance to our present inquiries to note that coins and other undoubted evidences of a comparatively recent date are rarely, if ever, found with gold relics of Archaic types. We rather see distinct reason to conclude that the stores of native gold and the direct sources of foreign supply were both nearly exhausted at an earlier period, and that silver, which chiefly belongs to the Iron or last Pagan period, was the metal used for purposes of personal adornment and display at the period when the peculiar native arts were developed which appear to belong to the dawn of the Scottish Christian Period. Whether derived from native or foreign sources, silver appears to have been then in greater abundance, and more lavishly employed for mere purposes of show than at any other period of our national history.
FOOTNOTES:
[543] Archæol. Journal, vol. vi. p. 259.