The archæology and prehistoric annals of Scotland

by Sir Daniel Wilson

One other singular class of Northern relics of which analogous types have been found in Scotland, remains to be noticed. These consist of a curious variety of vessels, presumed to have been designed for holding liquors, but invariably made in the form of some animal or monstrous hybrid. They differ entirely from any class of antiquities hitherto noticed, and more nearly resemble ancient Indian bronzes than any of the relics of early Northern art. The annexed figure represents one of these, in the collection of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharp, Esq., and found by him among a hoard of long-forgotten family heirlooms, in a vault of his paternal mansion of Hoddam Castle, Dumfriesshire. Of its previous history nothing is known. It is made of bronze. The principal figure is a lion, without a tail, measuring fourteen inches in length, and nearly fourteen inches in greatest height. On the back is perched a nondescript animal, half greyhound, half fish, apparently intended for a handle to the whole, while from the breast projects a stag's head with large antlers. This has a perforation in the back of the neck, as if for the insertion of a stop-cock, and it appears probable was designed for running off the liquid contained within the singular vessel to which it is attached. A small square lid on the top of the lion's head, opening with a hinge, supplies the requisite aperture for filling it with whatever liquor it was designed to hold. A similar relic, possessed by Sir John Maxwell, Bart., was dug up a few years since on the Pollock estate, and another in the collection of the late E. W. A. Drummond Hay, Esq., was also in the form of a lion. The conclusion which the appearance of the whole of these relics would suggest to an observer unfamiliar with Northern antiquities, would certainly be that they were the products of ancient Indian rather than of Scandinavian art. The following account, however, derived from Kluver's Norwegian Antiquities,[585] will shew that they are well known not only in Norway and Denmark, but even in Iceland—that interesting Northern stronghold of the later relics of Scandinavian art.

"On the farm of Vaaden, about five miles south-west from Drontheim, there was found some years ago in a field, and at no great distance from the surface, an animal form with beak and wings. In its beak it carries a man wearing a kirtle and closed helmet, booted and spurred. The figure, which is of brass composition, weighs five and one-half pounds. It is hollow internally. There is an aperture on the neck of the animal, which has been provided with a lid, and another aperture in the back of the helmet worn by the mailed figure which it carries in its beak. Another animal figure has been preserved from time immemorial, at Moldè, a small sea-port a little to the south of Drontheim. It resembles a unicorn, and has an aperture in the neck, to which obviously a lid had been attached. From the handle along the back, which represents a serpent, and the circumstance of the horn in the forehead being hollow, it may reasonably be conjectured to have been used as a liquor decanter. A third figure of a similar description, which is said to have been found under ground at Helgeland—a province situated to the northward of Drontheim—represents a knight mounted on a piebald horse in complete armour, wearing a coat of ring-mail, a square helmet with vizor down, and carrying a drawn sword in his hand. In this figure likewise there is an aperture in the upper part of the helmet, and another in the forehead of the horse."

The whole of these singular groups are figured in Kluver's work, and it will be seen that they closely correspond to the Scottish example from Hoddam Castle. The costume of the knights in two of them shews that they cannot be assigned to an earlier date than the latter part of the thirteenth century. They are all nearly of the same proportions, measuring about ten inches in length, and six inches in height, exclusive of the mailed knight mounted on the horse in the figure last described. Another curious specimen of the same class of antiquities, in which the principal figure is a lion, has been preserved for ages in the church of St. Olaf, at Vatnsfjord, in Iceland, and is described by Professor Sjöborg, who conceives it to have been used as a lamp. It is also referred to by Professor Finn Magnusen in the following remarks on those figured by Kluver:—"These curious liquor decanters—of which various specimens exist in Denmark and other countries—are of a very remarkable formation. The two first seem to bespeak an origin in the heathen mythology. Assuming that even in the middle ages or at a later period they were used in the rites of the Catholic Church, as in the instance of a like vessel, known by the name of the Thorlacian, presented to the church at Vatnsfjord, still it is by no means certain that such was their original purpose. Many articles, such as tapestries, cups, vases, candlesticks, &c., were used as household commodities before they were diverted to ecclesiastical purposes. In the same way these liquor decanters, which neither bear the forms nor devices of Christian art, have probably been originally adapted to another use." It will be readily admitted that these relics present little appearance of having been designed as any of the sacred vessels of the medieval church; nevertheless little doubt can be entertained that they were so used in the north, and perhaps at an early period throughout Christendom, as part of the furniture of the altar. Professor Munch, who examined the example figured above, in the collection of Mr. Sharp, during his recent visit to this country, observes in a letter written since his return to Norway: "Notwithstanding their fantastic shapes, of some four-footed beast, they were used upon the altar as vessels containing the water which the officiating Diaconus poured upon the hands of the priest before his touching the host at the elevation. I understand from Mr. Thomsen, who learned it from a Frenchman educated at Smyrna, that such vessels are still used for the same purpose in the Roman Catholic chapels in the Levant. It is therefore probable that those found in Norway have either been brought from Byzantium, or made after Byzantine models."

The ecclesiastical character of these singular relics would therefore seem to be more certainly established than their Scandinavian origin, though it may still be doubted whether they were primarily designed for any sacred purpose. It is, however, sufficient for our present object to trace the analogy discernible between the Scottish relic figured above and those Scandinavian antiquities discovered in the native country of the old Northmen, or preserved in their ancient seat of colonization on the verge of the Arctic Circle. In the latter instance, at least, we find them devoted to the uses of the church and placed alongside of its most sacred furniture; while to all appearance they seem to be more adapted to social purposes, which, among the northern nations especially, are most allied to excess.

These objects of Northern antiquity, however, form a class by themselves, and bear no analogy to the prevailing types of the last Pagan period, either in the Scandinavian countries or in Britain. However clearly the facts above referred to shew that they pertain to the antiquities of Norway and Denmark, they cannot be assigned to the same era of Northern art, which produced the beautiful oval brooches and other contemporary relics. They seem rather to point to a later period of intercourse with the East, when the Cufic coins, which are familiar to Northern antiquaries, were introduced. The oldest of these date as early as the year 79 of the Hegira, or A.D. 698, but they have been found of A.D. 1010, and may be presumed to have reached the north of Europe at a somewhat later period than the last of these dates.

Beautiful as some of the relics of Scandinavian art found in Scotland are, they can hardly be considered equal to contemporary examples of native workmanship, such as the very fine early Scottish brooch found in the vicinity of the mounds of Dunipace, and figured on a previous page. Compared with the Caithness oval brooch, selected as the very best of its class, it will, I think, be generally acknowledged as exhibiting both a more defined and a higher style of art. But independently of the beauty of this native relic, nothing is more remarkable than the striking contrast which it presents in form, and style of ornament, to any known class of Scandinavian personal ornaments, while, like most of the later native examples, it bears a close affinity to the contemporary productions of Irish art. The woodcut shews the ornamental interlaced knotwork on the upper portion of the acus, which, in the complete view of the brooch, is concealed by the central ornament.[586] In its imperfect state it is sufficiently apparent that this had been of the same disproportionate length as is frequently found in Irish examples, otherwise greatly varying in form. This is particularly the case with the ring fibulæ, generally of silver. One of these, found in county Antrim, and engraved in the Archæological Journal, measures above six and one-fourth inches long,[587] while a larger and still more beautiful one, in the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin, is nearly fourteen inches in length. This singular feature in the brooches of the early Christian Period both of Scotland and Ireland, most probably had its origin in some peculiar fashion of the Celtic dress, superseded in the former country during the vital changes which affected it in the eleventh century. The annexed woodcut shews another beautiful Scottish brooch, also from the collection of Mr. John Bell of Dungannon. It is of less costly material than the Dunipace brooch, being made of bronze, but, like it, it has been jewelled, and is otherwise little inferior in point of workmanship. It was found accidentally amongst old brass, in a brazier's shop in Glasgow, and is engraved here the full size of the original.