[85] Wilde writes: ‘Sceana, which is the plural of scjan, a knife,’ the Scotch sgian-dhu, or skene (Rev. Paul O’Brien’s Practical Grammar and Vocabulary of the Irish Language, Dublin: Fitzpatrick, 1809).’
[86] It is better to write Crannog, lest the word be pronounced ‘crannoje.’ It derives from the Irish crann (a tree, e.g. crann ola = an olive-tree), and properly means a platform or plank-floor.
[87] Pliny, the grumbler, complains (xxxiii. 54): ‘Our very soldiers, holding even ivory in contempt, have their capuli (sword-hilts) inlaid or chased (cælentur) with silver; their vaginæ (scabbards) are heard to jingle with their silver catellæ (chains), and their belts with the plates of silver (baltea laminis crepitant) that inlay them.’ It will be seen that Divus Cæsar had juster and more soldier-like views. Scipio the younger, when shown a fine shield by a youth, said: ‘It is really beautiful; but a soldier should rely more on his right arm than on his left arm.’
[88] Of Lund, Sweden. The Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia, &c., translated by Sir John Lubbock. Nilsson is quoted and illustrated by Col. A. Lane Fox (Prim. War. p. 135), and by Wilde (p. 254) from the Scandinaviska Nordens Ur-Invanare, 1843.
[89] Chapter III.
[90] A commentator volunteers the information that the bow was tipped with ram’s-horn. Nor is there any need to translate ‘goat’ by ibex.
[91] Pemberton, Travels.
[92] Hakluyt’s edit., p. 43. The index to this publication is very defective: one must look through the whole volume for a line of quotation. I shall again notice it in the next chapter.
[93] Wilkinson (Sir J. Gardner), A Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians, i. chap. 5, mentions only tips of hard wood, flint, and metals.
[94] The Roteiro or Ruttier of the Voyage of Vasco da Gama (p. 5, Lisboa, Imprensa Nacional) speaks of tribes about the Cape of Good Hope armed with horn-weapons ‘worked by fire’ (huuns cornos tostados). I should suggest that ‘cornos’ is an error for páos (wooden staves).