The chain of knitted silver wire (Fig. 23) is an object of very peculiar character, but its relations are not difficult to establish.^[20] Its total length is 16 inches, and its width ¼ inch. It is formed of silver wire of the fineness of sewing thread, knitted as a hollow tube, with the common knitting-stitch used in knitting stockings. The knots at the ends of the tube are produced separately, and fastened on. The ring at the end of the chain has its ends twisted together in the same manner as the ring attached to the hair-pin.

The beads of coloured glass found in the graves (of which the different varieties are shown in Fig. 24), were seven in number. In all probability, only a part of them were recovered. They present the peculiarity of being formed of glass of different colours fused together so as to present a variegated surface, sometimes in regular patterns of different colours.

The saucepan of thin bronze (Fig. 25) is extremely light, of good shape and excellent workmanship. Its whole length is 17½ inches,—the handle being 12 inches in length, the bowl 5½ inches wide and 3½ inches deep. It is formed of extremely thin beaten bronze, not much thicker than writing paper. A T-shaped fillet surrounds the rim, giving strength and rigidity to the upper part of the bowl. Below the rim are three slight mouldings in repoussé work. The handle is strengthened by a T-shaped fillet on either edge, and the circular expansion at the end is ornamented with a disc hammered up from the under side.

The hemispherical implement of black glass (which is here shown in Fig. 26), is the most peculiar object found in this grave. In shape it nearly resembles the bottom of a common black bottle, though flatter in the concavity and scarcely so large, being 3 inches in diameter and 1½ inches in thickness. It has been made by “throwing” a lump of glass in fusion, and has evidently been “thrown” in this special form for a special purpose. That purpose, as we shall see hereafter, is indicated by the marks of use on its convex side,—which is considerably rubbed and striated, chiefly towards the centre where the surface is most prominent.

Lastly, a little cylinder of bronze plated with silver, about 2 inches in length and scarcely so thick as a common pencil-case, contains in its interior, adhering to one of its sides, what seems to be the point end of a needle of bronze.

From this detailed examination of the objects associated with these interments, we perceive that they are for the most part objects presenting a strongly marked individuality of character. The weapons form a peculiar group, consisting of a long, broad-bladed, double-edged sword, with short, straight guard and triangular pommel; a light wooden shield with a truncated boss of iron, and a long, stout-bladed, and unbarbed spear. The ornaments also form a peculiar group, the brooches being large, oval, and bowl-shaped, and covered with patterns of zoomorphic decoration, imperfectly expressed. Reverting to the remarks made on the essential qualities of this peculiar style of decoration, it will be remembered that it differs widely in character and spirit from the decoration of the Celtic school with which we have now become familiar; and if the general teaching of these Lectures, in regard to the value of decoration as an index to the archæological relations of the objects on which it is found, has been successfully applied, it must be obvious that there is no Celticism apparent in these objects. We are unable to compare the forms of the weapons and implements with forms obtained from Celtic burials, because no iron sword, no iron spear, or wooden shield has ever been found in Scotland in association with any burial demonstrably of Celtic character. And no such group of implements as axes and smithy-tools of iron has ever been found in association with any interment on the mainland of Scotland. The obvious inference is that these two burials, with their associated groups of weapons, implements, and ornaments possessing such strongly marked and unusual characteristics, may be outlying examples of a form of burial and associated types of objects, whose special area is not Celtic, and therefore probably not in Scotland.

I have already explained that since it is difficult, if not impossible, to point to any given area which has remained unaffected by movements of populations, invasions, colonisations, and other changes not dependent on purely physical conditions, we must be prepared for the occurrence, among the products that are indigenous to the soil, of other products archæologically characteristic of other areas; and I have endeavoured to show how these are separable from the purely indigenous types by their difference in character and decoration, and how they are assignable to their parent area by their identity with the types native to the region from which they are derived. This is the problem we have now to deal with.

The most prominent features of the form of burial exhibited by these Islay graves are that it is burial unburnt, and with grave-goods. I have already shown that these are features that are common to almost all forms of Paganism. But there seems to be a special suggestiveness in the character of the group of objects deposited in the man’s grave. Since he took with him his sword and spear, his axe and shield, and took also with him his smithy-tools to keep them in repair, it seems a fair inference that his form of faith must have taught him to look for a continuance of warfare in the life beyond the grave. We know that such a faith existed, and that the Northern and Western Isles of Scotland were overrun by men who held it at a time when such implements and weapons of iron were in common use. The special feature which distinguished the wild creed of the Northmen from most other forms of heathenism was that it promised a place in Odin’s Hall to all men wounded by arms or slain in battle. Spears supported the ceiling of this Valhalla; it was roofed with shields, and coats of mail adorned its benches. It was the perpetual pastime of its inmates to fight and slay each other every day, to be revived again before evening, and then to ride back to the feast of boar’s flesh and mead. If, therefore, it can be shown that the forms of the weapons, implements, and ornaments thus found in these Islay graves are the forms of the Norwegian area, and that, when they occur in Scotland, they are found in those portions of Scottish territory that were possessed and colonised by the Norwegians—and found only there—the demonstration of the character, period, and relations of these burials will be complete.

The materials for forming an estimate of the typical character of the burials of the Viking time in Norway are ample, and they have been very fully described by the Norwegian archæologists. Upwards of a thousand graves of this period are known. The form of burial which they exhibit is burial with grave-goods. The burial is usually covered by a mound, either round or oblong in shape. The mounds vary greatly in size, but they differ from those of the early Iron Age, and of all previous ages, in being usually unfurnished with either cist or chamber. Stones are often found set round the burial, which, when the body was unburnt, was simply laid on the natural surface, and the mound heaped over it. In Norway the custom of burning the body exceeds in frequency the custom of burying unburnt by about four to one. Where the body has been burnt it is usually found that the grave-goods have also passed through the fire, but this is not always the case. The burnt remains are either found spread over the area of the base of the mound or gathered together in a heap in the centre. Very frequently they are found placed in an urn. The urns of the Viking time are very rarely made of clay, but are either hollowed out of some soft stone, such as steatite, or they are caldrons made of thin plates of iron riveted together, or beaten out in bronze. The grave-goods buried with these interments include the clothing, weapons, implements, or ornaments used or possessed by the deceased, and the furnishings of the grave are thus rich in proportion to the wealth and station of the individual.

The sword which is characteristic of these interments in Norway is a peculiar weapon. It is long, broad-bladed, often double-edged, and usually furnished with a short, straight guard and a triangular pommel. One which was ploughed up from a grave-mound at Vik, in Flaa Sogn in Norway, in 1837, is shown in Fig. 27 for comparison with those of the same type found in Scotland. I have said that we have no Celtic sword of this type. It is the type which prevailed in Scandinavia during the last three centuries of their heathen period. It differs from the types that preceded and succeeded it in Norway, and it differs also from the types of swords of the later Iron Age in other countries of Europe. It is specially the sword of the Norwegian Viking.

As the sword is the most characteristic object among the grave-goods of the man, the brooch is also the most characteristic object among the grave-goods of the woman. The brooch, which is constantly found in these interments in Norway, is a most peculiar ornament. It is always of brass, massive, oval, and bowl-shaped in form, and is distinguished from all other brooches that are known, not only of this, but of every other area and every other time, by the fact that it is an article of personal adornment which (though as capable of being used singly as any other form of fibula might be), is almost never found singly, but constantly occurs in pairs—the one being usually an almost exact duplicate of the other. This singular type of brooch is the special ornament of the female dress which prevailed in Norway during the last three centuries of their heathen period.^[21] It differs entirely from the types that preceded and succeeded it; and it differs as completely from the types of the later Iron Age in all other European countries.

We therefore see that if the sword thus found in Islay had been dug up in Norway it would have taken its place as one in a great series of the ordinary Viking type, and these brooches from the woman’s grave would have matched exactly with some hundreds of similar pairs from Norwegian graves.^[22] The whole group of objects would have corresponded with the special characters of many similar groups preserved in the Christiania Museum. The special forms of each of the members of the groups—as, for instance, the forge-tongs, the hammer, the adze, the axes,—are all forms that are abundantly represented in Viking graves there. Nicolaysen gives twenty-three instances of smithy-hammers, and seventeen instances of forge-tongs among the articles found in grave-mounds of the Viking time described by him, in Norway. Several of these grave-mounds contained more or less complete sets of smith’s tools, including anvils, chisels, files, as well as hammers and tongs. Along with an interment of this period at Thiele, in Jutland, there were two anvils of different forms, four different kinds of hammers, four varieties of pincers or forge-tongs, two chisels, two implements for drawing wire, four files, two melting pans, a pair of scales and weights, and a quantity of other implements. It was natural that the smith’s craft should hold a high place in the estimation of a people wholly devoted to the use of arms, and as famous for their skill in forging, tempering, and ornamenting weapons as for their prowess in using them. But such homelier objects as the pot and the saucepan of the Islay graves are common accompaniments of these interments in Norway, and the counterparts of the implement of black glass found in the woman’s grave may be seen in the museums of that country, and their purpose demonstrated by specimens that are actually still in use. Nicolaysen describes them as lumps of glass formed like the bottom of a bottle, and the character of the objects usually associated with them may be indicated by the contents of one grave-mound in which this implement occurs. The mound was a large one, 44½ feet long, and 73 feet broad, set round the base with large stones. It contained an interment after cremation. The ashes were gathered into a bronze vessel, 8 inches high, and 17 inches in greatest diameter, over which was inverted a pot of steatite, both vessels enclosing a quantity of iron implements cemented into a solid mass of oxidation and burnt human bones. Among the implements were a lump of glass like the bottom of a bottle, a knife-blade, the rings of a bridle-bit, an axe, a sickle-blade, a whetstone, some bronze ornaments, and an ox-horn. Alongside of the bronze vessel were a spear-head and a frying-pan of iron, 8½ inches diameter, with 7 inches of the handle remaining, and all around were large quantities of clinker nails. Here the associations of the glass implement are similar in character to its associations in the Islay graves. Its purpose is demonstrated by the facts recorded by Nicolaysen and Lorange, who state that in Mandal Amt and in several remote districts on the west coast of Norway, the women still use them for giving a gloss to their white linen caps, and generally for getting up a gloss on linen by friction.^[23]

It has thus been demonstrated that every feature of these two Islay burials, and every object associated with them, is clearly of Norwegian type, and of the heathen period of their Viking time—that is, of the period ranging between the beginning of the eighth and the end of the tenth centuries—and that the sword of this peculiar form and the bowl-shaped brooch of this remarkable type are the most characteristic objects associated with this class of burials.

The next question that presents itself for determination is, What is the range or area of this type of burial, associated with these types of objects, in Scotland?

On this same estate of Ballinaby, in Islay, a grave was discovered under a large standing-stone in the year 1788. There is no precise record of the circumstances beyond the fact that a pair of oval bowl-shaped brooches (Fig. 29) were found in it. They were presented to the National Museum, and are thus preserved. They are of the same variety of type as those previously described, but differing somewhat in the patterns of their ornamentation. They are 4¼ inches in length, 2⅞ inches in breadth, and 1¼ inch in height. Their pins were of iron and are gone, but the hinge and catch remain in both. The central ornament of the upper shell is a raised boss, cast hollow in the metal, chased on the upper surface, and pierced with four holes. The channels cut in the bands of unpierced metal between the patterns of pierced work, and the holes through which the plaited strands of silver wires had passed, are visible, but the wires themselves are gone. The holes for the pins that fastened the studs of coloured paste on the circular spaces at the junction of the bands are there, but pins and studs are both wanting. The patterns of the ornamentation are zoomorphic, representing winged, dragon-like animals placed face to face. The band round the lower part of the under shell of the brooch is filled with a suggestion of zoomorphic patterns in panels, and the flange or flat border underneath it is divided into a series of raised and sunk spaces, produced apparently by a triangular punch.

In 1845 a similar burial was discovered in the strath near Newton Distillery, also in Islay. No record of the circumstances is preserved, but two oval bowl-shaped brooches (Fig. 30) and an amber bead, which were found in the grave, are in the possession of Mr. John Campbell of Islay. The brooches are each 4⅛ inches in length, 2¾ inches in width, and 1 inch in height. The pins had been of iron and are gone, but the hinge and catch are still traceable. These brooches differ from those that have been already described, inasmuch as they are not double shelled but cast in one piece, that is, they are made of a single shell, which is chased, but not pierced in open-work patterns. The division and the arrangement of the patterns are much the same as in those first described, but there are no channels in the partitions for silver wires, and the partitions themselves are ornamented with a species of fret. The circular spaces at the junctions of the partitions have been ornamented with studs of paste pinned on, but studs and pins are both gone. The patterns of the ornamentation are executed with a graving tool, but they exhibit so little coherency of design that it is impossible to call them zoomorphic.^[24]

In the old Statistical Account of Tiree it is stated that, in digging at Cornaigbeg, there were found at different times human skeletons, and nigh them skeletons of horses. Swords, it is said, were also found, but diminished with rust,—silver-work preserved the handles; there were also shields and helmets. In March 1847 an oval bowl-shaped brooch of this special character, which had been found in Tiree, was exhibited to the Society by Sir John Graham Dalzell, but it was not left in the Museum, and it is not now known what became of it. But in 1872, the late Rev. Dr. Norman Macleod presented to the Museum a brooch of this character found in Tiree (Fig. 31), which is almost precisely of the same pattern as those first found in Islay. It is 4¼ inches in length, 2¼ inches in breadth, and 1½ inch in height. It is double, and is here figured with the upper and under shells separated from each other so as to show the manner in which they were fitted and pinned together, so that the smooth-gilded surface of the under shell might shine through the pierced work of the upper. This brooch also presents a peculiar appearance common to them all, but which, in this instance, is strongly marked. The interior of the under shell is impressed with the texture of coarse cloth so distinctly, that the size, number, and interweaving of the threads are as visible as in the web. The cloth seems to be coarse linen, and the appearance is really an impression cast in the metal. These under shells were probably cast in moulds prepared in this way—the side of the mould corresponding to the convex surface with its ornamental border was cut in soft stone, a thickness of wet cloth was then fitted into it corresponding to the thickness of the metal, and over this a lump of clay was rammed hard; the clay was lifted and the cloth removed, thus leaving a cavity for the metal;^[25] the clay became one side of the mould and the stone the other, and, when the metal was run in, it produced a cast of the impression of the cloth retained upon the backing of clay. Thus these brooches present castings in metal of the textile fabrics of the eighth and ninth centuries, showing the thickness of its threads, the method of weaving, and the general finish of the fabric. But there is a still more interesting circumstance connected with them in respect to the cloth of the period when they were made and worn. In some instances they have not only preserved casts in the metal of the impression of cloth in the clay of the mould, but have actually preserved portions of the dress in which they were worn, or in which they were fixed when committed to the grave with the body of the wearer. I have already stated that they have usually had pins of iron, now represented by a lump of oxidation. In this brooch from Tiree, and also in one which I brought from Hakedalen, near Christiania, I have ascertained by careful examination of this lump of oxidation that it has enclosed and protected from decay a minute portion of puckered cloth which had been caught between the point of the thick pin and the iron catch into which it slipped when the brooch was fastened on the dress. I have been able to remove and mount for microscopical examination some small scraps of this cloth. It appears to be linen, but with a partial admixture of another fibre, which may be hemp, and I can detect no material difference between the cloth in the specimen from Norway and that from the island of Tiree on our own western coast.

Continuing our inquiry as to the area over which these peculiar relics have been found in Scotland, we ascertain that there are other instances of their occurrence in the Hebrides. On the island of Barra a large grave-mound, crowned by a standing stone 7 feet high, was opened by Commander Edge in 1862. The grave contained a skeleton placed with the head to the west, and along with it there were found an iron sword, 33 inches in length, with remains of the scabbard, a shield-boss of iron and some remains of the shield, a whetstone, two oval bowl-shaped brooches of this type, and a comb of bone, 8 inches in length.^[26] A similar burial was found “in the island of Sangay” (probably Sanderay) “between Uist and Harris.” The grave contained a skeleton, and with it were found a pair of these brooches (closely resembling Fig. 48, from Pierowall in Orkney), together with a brass pin and a brass needle.^[27] Even in remote St. Kilda the evidences of the occurrence of this typical form of burial are not wanting. A pair of these oval brooches found in that island are preserved in the Andersonian Museum, Glasgow.^[28]

Coming now to the mainland of Scotland, we find that one of these brooches is preserved in Ospisdale House, Sutherlandshire, of which there is no precise record; but there is every reason to conclude that it is one of a pair found somewhere in the neighbourhood. Another pair were found in a grave in the neighbourhood of Dunrobin Castle, and the under shells of them are preserved in the Duke of Sutherland’s museum there.

In Caithness there have been occasional discoveries of interments of this character, but unfortunately no one seems to have thought a burial which was associated with “rusty pieces of old iron” worthy of careful investigation. The Rev. Mr. Pope records, incidentally,^[29] a remarkable discovery of swords “in a peat bank near the house of Haimar” in the neighbourhood of Thurso, and dismisses the subject with the remark that “they were odd machines resembling plough-shares, all iron.” A pair of oval bowl-shaped brooches of great beauty were found at Castletown in Caithness in 1786. One of these (Fig. 32) is in the National Museum.^[30] It is 4½ inches in length and 3 inches in width. It is double-shelled, and the gilding, both on the under and upper shells, is still visible, although the “double row of silver cord along the edge,” which is noted in the first description of the brooches when they were presented by James Traill of Rattar in 1787, is now gone. The centre of the convexity of the brooch is surmounted by a bold ornament, in form somewhat resembling a crown. The ornamentation is distinctly zoomorphic, the four projecting ornaments below the centrepiece being carved into the form of animals’ heads. These brooches were “dug out of the top of the ruins” of a Broch near Castletown, and were found “lying beside a skeleton, buried under a flat stone with very little earth above it.” This evidently implies that the interment had been made in the upper part of the mound covering the ruins of the Broch.^[31]

Another pair of these oval bowl-shaped brooches from Caithness is also in the National Museum. They were found in a cist in the top of a natural mound of gravel called the Longhills, on the north side of the river, a little above the bridge of Wick, in 1840. Although found together they differ in pattern, one being nearly similar to the Tiree brooch, while the other (Fig. 33) differs from all the Scottish specimens in having eight bosses of open work arranged round the central boss. They retain portions of the twisted strands of fine silver wire which lay in the channeled depressions of the upper part.

Passing from Caithness to Orkney, we find abundant evidence of the same form of burial associated with objects of similar character. At Sweindrow, in the island of Rousay, there is a field in which there are many graves, from which objects of iron were occasionally turned up by the plough many years ago, when the soil had been less frequently disturbed. In the year 1826 a fine specimen of the peculiar type of sword associated with these burials (Fig. 34) was thus turned up by the plough in close proximity to the spot where previously the iron boss of a shield had been similarly discovered.^[32] The sword is a long, broad-bladed, double-edged weapon, with short straight guard and triangular pommel. It measures 3 feet 3¼ inches in total length, the blade being 2 feet 8 inches in length. The guard is 5 inches in length and 1¼ inch in depth. The grip measures 3¼ inches in length. The pommel is 4¼ inches in width and 3 inches in height. The blade, which is 2⅛ inches wide at the hilt, has been in the scabbard at the time of its deposit, and blade and scabbard are now converted into a mass of oxidation. The scabbard has been made of thin laths of wood, the fibre of which is still visible, covered in some places with leather. There are also some remains of the side-plates of bone or horn which made up the grip, and the gilt metallic mounting which adorned both ends of the grip still remains. The ornament closely resembles that of the silver mounting of the rim of a horn or beaker (Fig. 35), which was dug up at Burghead some time previous to 1826, and is now in the Museum. But the ornament of the sword has a distinctly zoomorphic feeling, and still more closely resembles the decoration of a similar mounting of the hilt of a sword of the Viking type dug up at Islandbridge, near Dublin, and preserved in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy.

Except in the island of Westray (in which seven specimens have occurred), there is no record of the discovery of the oval bowl-shaped brooches elsewhere in Orkney. I shall describe the remarkable group of graves in Westray in connection with the phenomena of burial, merely remarking here that the presence of these brooches and this type of sword carries the area of this form of burial into the Orkney Islands.

Two oval bowl-shaped brooches, having the usual mark of cloth on the inside of their inner shells, are also in the museum at Lerwick. They were found at Clibberswick, in the north end of the island of Unst, the most northerly island of the Shetland group. Along with them there were found a plain silver bracelet, two glass beads ornamented with twisted streaks of white and blue, and a trefoil-shaped brooch of a type which is also peculiarly Scandinavian, covered with a zoomorphic ornament consisting of dragonesque forms, whose feet twist under and grasp parts of their bodies.^[33]

The range of these burials, distinguished (among other features peculiar to themselves), by the presence of this peculiar type of sword and this remarkable type of brooch,^[34] has thus been traced through the western and northern isles from Islay to Unst, in Shetland, touching the mainland only in the counties of Sutherland and Caithness. This area, established on archæological evidence, coincides exactly with the area established by historical record as that which was colonised and possessed by the Norwegians in the time of their heathenism.

I now proceed to notice other instances in which burials with grave-goods of a similar character, though differing more or less in certain special features, have been observed. It is but recently that they have attracted attention, and the interest and significance of their peculiar phenomena is only beginning to be understood.

About fifty years ago, a grave-mound situated between the chapel of St. Donan and the shore in the island of Eigg, was levelled by the tenant of the land. No observations of the phenomena of the burial were made, but the objects found were fortunately preserved.^[35] The principal object found in this grave-mound was a sword-hilt of bronze (Fig. 36), 7½ inches in length. In its form it resembles the hilt of the Islay sword, but is greatly superior to it in the beauty of its ornamentation and the skill of its workmanship. Indeed, I know no finer or more elaborate piece of art workmanship of the kind, either in this country or in Norway. It is constructed in four pieces—the triangular pommel, the cross-piece under it, the grip, and the guard. Each of these has been cast and worked separately, and they are all united by Fig. 37.—Side view of Pommel of Sword-hilt.
Fig. 37.—Side view of Pommel of Sword-hilt. the tang of the blade which passes up through them. The decoration is difficult to describe, but it is not difficult to perceive the harmony, elegance, and fitness of the general design. Each of the four parts is treated with reference to its decoration as a separate whole, but they also combine to give to the entire object a completely harmonious design. The triangular pommel is placed upon a cross-piece answering in character to the cross-piece below the grip, and the grip answers in character to both. The ends of the pommel are formed as heads of animals, the zoomorphism more suggested than expressed, and more distinct in the front view of the whole hilt (Fig. 36) than in the side view of the pommel alone as here represented (Fig. 37). The grip and the cross-piece below it are all decorated in the same style, with a beautiful pattern formed of a series of arcaded spaces with quadrate ornaments between. The patterns chased in the arcaded spaces are apparently zoomorphic in character, and the quadrate ornaments between them are plates of silver pinned on to the bronze, a circle being incised round every pin head, and each pair of circles connected by a line drawn from the right side of the one to the left side of the other, so as to resemble an S-shaped scroll. The edges of the grip (Fig. 38) are ornamented with three sunk panels of interlaced work alternating with four plain panels. The upper side of the guard (Fig. 39) has two ornaments of similar character, each consisting of four loops round a pellet, the bands composing the loops crossing each other in the centre of the figure. There is nothing that is distinctively Celtic in the style of this interlaced work. Indeed, there is so little of it, that it would be difficult, from this specimen alone, to form any opinion as to the relations of interlaced ornament to the system of decoration characteristic of the Viking period. I have already stated that the mere presence of interlaced work is not a feature which can be relied on as a certain indication either of the Celtic or the Scandinavian character of the ornament of which it forms a part. In consequence of the close intercourse which subsisted between the areas of the two distinctive schools of art during the Viking time, the influence of the one upon the other is traceable in such transitional styles as that of the Manx crosses and the decorations of the Skaill brooches to be hereafter described. And the Celtic manner, with a Scandinavian spirit, is distinctly discernible in the decoration of a sword-hilt (Fig. 40) found in a grave-mound of the Viking time at Ultuna, in Sweden.^[36]

In the grave-mound at Eigg there were found, along with the sword-hilt, a buckle or fastener of a belt of bronze or brass (Fig. 41), attached to a thin plate of the same metal, and a solid lump of metal apparently of a similar alloy, 2½ inches in length, which appears to have been one of the feet of a large three-footed pot.

Two other grave-mounds in the same neighbourhood were excavated in 1875 by Professor Macpherson, and I had the opportunity of seeing them subsequently. The ground-plans and sections of them which are here given (Fig. 42), were made by Mr. Arthur Joass. The largest mound was about 40 feet in diameter and from 6 to 7 feet in height, with a circular depression in the centre. In an enclosure roughly formed of stones in the centre of the mound and on the original level of the surface, there were found traces of an interment, with grave-goods, of the usual Viking character. They consisted of an iron sword in the sheath, similar to that found in the Islay grave, an iron axe-head, a spear-head of iron, a penannular brooch of bronze plated with silver and ending in knobs of the shape of thistle heads (Fig. 43), an agrafe or belt-clasp of bronze or brass, ornamented with a scroll-like pattern in relief (Fig. 44); a small whetstone (Fig. 45), and several portions of dress consisting of cloth of three different varieties of texture (Fig. 46), one of which is trimmed with fur.

The smaller grave-mound, a few yards distant, contained the fragments of an iron sword, a whetstone, a plain penannular brooch with knobbed ends, of a slightly flattened form, in bronze or brass, and some beads of amber and jet.

Perhaps the most remarkable cemetery of graves belonging to this intruded Paganism of the Norsemen was that excavated by Mr. William Rendall, of Pierowall, in the island of Westray, in Orkney, in 1849. The graves were situated in the sandy links at the north-west side of the head of the bay of Pierowall. Mr. Rendall’s notes are brief and imperfect. I have twice gone over the ground explored by him, with the view of ascertaining certain points in connection with these interments, and I think there is evidence on the spot that each of them was placed on the original surface of the ground, that they were surrounded by roughly made enclosures of stones, and covered by a mound of greater or less bulk. Mr. Rendall explored two groups of these grave-mounds, the one containing four and the other five interments.

In the first group, grave-mound No. 1 contained a human skeleton laid on its right side, north and south, the skull cleft, apparently before burial, and only one half of it found. Deposited with it there were a number of iron weapons or implements, among which Mr. Rendall recognised an iron axe and what he calls the half of a helmet, which I have no doubt was half of the globular boss of a shield. Grave-mound No. 2 contained the remains of a man, a horse, and a dog. It is not said whether the whole skeleton of the horse was in the grave, but the remark is made that the horse was of small size, and the bridle-bit remained between its jaws. Many pieces of iron were found, among which were a buckle and a spear-head or part of a sword. Grave-mound No. 3 contained the remains of a man and a horse with fragments of iron implements. Grave-mound No. 4 contained a skeleton only.

At a little distance to the north-east of this group of grave-mounds was the second group. In grave-mound No. 1 was the skeleton of a man. At his head lay the cup-shaped boss of his shield; at his left side his sword. A whetstone, a comb, and several glass beads were also found, and many pieces of iron of whose form and purpose there is no suggestion. In grave-mound No. 2 was a skeleton, which Mr. Rendall concluded to be that of a female. Two oval bowl-shaped brooches of brass were found on the breast, and a little below them a circular ornament and a pin of the same metal. There were no traces of iron, or remains of iron implements or weapons. Grave-mound No. 3 contained a small skeleton with two oval bowl-shaped brooches and a small circular-headed pin on the breast, and two long single-edged, round-backed combs of bone (Fig. 47) lay on either side of the neck. No. 4 had been previously disturbed. In No. 5 were two brooches, two combs, and a pin similar to those in No. 3.