Fig. 21. ½
Fig. 22. ½
Fig. 23. ½
The earliest British celts were copied not from stone models but from foreign ones of bronze;[565] and our winged celts and palstaves resemble certain French specimens so closely that they too were probably modelled in the first instance upon the latter.[566] The socket also was invented by some ingenious foreign cutler;[567] for palstaves with the wings bent over are rare in this country, whereas socketed celts with ornamental wings are common.[568] Socketed celts were apparently never widely diffused in Northern Britain; and of course even in the south they did not altogether displace palstaves.[569] Even after they began to be manufactured here the output was supplemented by importation from Gaul: a certain type, the blades of which, instead of expanding, are long and narrow, and the sockets almost square, occurs frequently in North-Western France and our southern counties, but very seldom in the north.[570]
Bronze celts in general, like those of stone, were doubtless used for various purposes—as hoes, hatchets, and possibly battle-axes—and some, which are very narrow or very small, as chisels.[571] Palstaves were sometimes used, as their name would suggest, in the construction of earthworks.[572]
Sickles.
Sickles probably originated in Southern Europe. The few early specimens that have been found here have their closest analogies in France and Denmark; but, for some unknown reason, socketed sickles are almost peculiar to the British Isles.[573]
