The handle of the leaf-blade usually consisted of plates of horn, bone, or wood, riveted on either side of the hilt plate. The latter differs considerably in form, and in the number and arrangement of the rivets, by which the covering material was attached. Some have as many as thirteen piercings; they seldom, however, exceed seven. The apertures are either round holes or longitudinal slots of greater or lesser extent. There is a pronounced swelling in the grip when the tang is of full length. At the end it expands, evidently for the purpose of receiving a pommel formed by the material of the hilt. This tang end is a fish-tail more or less pronounced. One illustrated by Dr. Evans[1035] has two spirals attached to the base of the hilt, a rare form in England, but common in Scandinavia. Another[1036] pommel-end has a distinct casting, ‘and is very remarkable on account of the two curved horns extending from it, which are somewhat trumpet-mouthed, with a projecting cone in the centre of each.’ This manilla-end appears to me Irish.

We have seen the rapier in Mycenæ and Etruria.[1037] It reappears in northern Europe, England, and France, perfectly shaped; and, though of rare occurrence in hoards, it seems to belong to the period when socketed celts were in use. There is no difficulty in tracing the intermediate steps between the leaf-shaped dagger and the rapier. The latter measures from twenty to twenty-three and a half, and even thirty and a quarter inches, with a breadth of five-eighths inch, widening at the base to two and three-eighths to two and nine-sixteenths inches. The largest have a strong projecting mid-rib, while their weight is diminished by flutings along either side. Another form of blade is more like a bayonet, showing a section nearly square; while a third has a flat surface where the mid-rib would be, a form not yet obsolete. Few are tanged;[1038] mostly we find the base or shoulders of the blade provided with drill-holes or with notches, to admit the nails; and in some the wings are broadened for this purpose.[1039]

During the Late Celtic Period the Britons, like the Gauls, were armed with gladii sine mucrone, which Tacitus[1040] calls ingentes and enormes, These Spathæ must have grown out of the bronze rapier. A monument found in London and preserved at Oxford shows the blade to have been between three and four feet long.[1041]

All history declares the Ancient Britons to have been of right warlike race; and Solinus[1042] relates of them a characteristic trait. ‘When a woman is delivered of a male child, she places its first food upon the father’s Sword, and gently puts it to the little one’s mouth, praying to her country gods that its death may be, in like manner, amidst arms.’

The ancient Irish seem to have been rather savages than barbarians, amongst whom the wild non-Celts long prevailed over the Goidels or Gaels. Ptolemy calls the former Ivernii, and it has been lately suggested[1043] that this may have been the racial name throughout the British Islands. The same savage element, which is still persistent, was noticed by Tasso, when speaking of the Hibernian crusaders:

The modern Irish, who in historical falsification certainly rival, if they do not excel, the Hindús, claim for their ancestry an exalted grade of culture. They found their pretensions upon illuminated manuscripts and similar works of high art; but it is far easier to account for these triumphs as the exceptional labours of students who wandered to the classic regions about the Mediterranean. If ancient Ireland ever was anything but savage, where, let us ask, are the ruins that show any sign of civilisation? A people of artists does not pig in wooden shanties, surrounded by a rude vallum of earth-work.

Ireland, like modern Central Africa, would receive all her civilised weapons from her neighbours. The Picts of Scotland would transmit a knowledge of iron-working and of the Sword to the Scotti or Picts of the north-east of Hibernia.[1045] This is made evident by the names of the articles. or , the Welsh kledyv, is simply gladius; and is ‘tuck’ or a clerk’s Sword. So , the lance head, derives from the Gaulish spear (lanskei) which Diodorus Siculus terms λαγκία, a congener of the Greek λόγχη and of the low Latin lancea or lanscea, meaning either spear (hasta) or Sword.