Part 5

The most peculiar and striking objects among these ornaments are the two brooches. They are determined to be brooches by the fact that they are each furnished with a pin on the under side. These pins, which are of brass, are of very peculiar construction.[18] The head of the pin (Fig. 19) is bent back to form a loop, by which the pin is secured in a socket formed by two projections from the inner surface of the brooch, in which a small rod is riveted passing through the loop of the pin. On this rod, the pin plays as on a hinge. The free end of the loop of the pin, doubled back and recurved, impinges on the inner and concave surface of the brooch, and acts as a spring when the point of the pin is pressed back to be slipped under a projecting catch on the opposite end of the brooch. When in its place it lies under the concavity in a line with the longest diameter of the brooch, which is oval and bowl-shaped, convex externally and concave internally. The body of the brooch (Fig. 20), which is 4¾ inches in length, 3 inches in width, and 1½ inch in height, is double,[19] consisting of an outer and highly ornamented shell of pierced open work, placed over an inner shell which is smooth and highly gilt on the upper surface, so that the gilding may appear through the open work above it. This open work consists of a series of patterns which are similar as to the general effect, though they vary in their details. They are arranged in equal segmentai divisions of the convexity of the brooch, and separated by continuous bands of unpierced metal. These bands are traversed longitudinally by furrows, in which plaited strands of fine silver wire are laid and carried through perforations at the junctions where they cross each other. At these junctions are circular spaces, each of which has borne a knob or stud, probably of coloured paste or enamelled glass. These are all gone, but the pins that fastened them remain. The patterns themselves are zoomorphic in character, but their zoomorphism is radically different from that of the Celtic school. It is zoomorphism in which the details are sacrificed to the general effect, as if in the mind of the artist the idea of the ornament was dominant, and the idea of the form of its parts subordinate. No two styles of ornament could be more widely dissimilar. The artist of the Celtic school produced his effects by simple variation of the arrangements of his stereotyped forms. In all the intricate interlacements of his zoomorphic patterns, the typical forms employed to produce the most bewilderingly beautiful combinations are substantially the same, and their parts are the same. His zoomorphism was consistent throughout. If the conventional beast was there at all, his tail was there, and his crest, and his limbs—he was there in unvarying completeness of form and conventionality of feature. But this zoomorphism renders nothing distinctly. There is a suggestion of heads here and wings there, but there may be no bodies and no limbs, or there may be a suggestion of limbs to which no bodies effeir. The Celtic artist built up his patterns with the forms of his conventional beasts laboriously expressed. This artist simply blocks out his pattern and covers it with suggestions of animal forms.

Footnote 18:

The pins of all the other specimens of this type of brooch that are preserved in the Museum have been of iron, and have consequently disappeared by oxidation. Without the Ballinaby brooches we should not have known the construction of the pin.

Footnote 19:

See the figure of the Tiree brooch, which is engraved with the upper shell removed from its place, and each shown separately (Fig. 31).

But if the art of these brooches is not Celtic, the form differs no less widely from that of the Celtic brooches, which is penannular, with flattened and expanded ends. No brooch of this oval bowl-shaped form occurs within the Celtic area, either ornamented with Celtic art, or associated with objects of exclusively Celtic origin.

Equally characteristic, and as widely different from anything that we have seen of Celtic forms or Celtic art, are the forms and the art of the double discs of plated metal (Fig. 21), of which three were found in the same grave with the brooches. They are so thin and so sorely wasted that they could only have been recovered from a sandy soil, and even then, if they had been subjected to less careful handling, we should have been unable to establish their original form. They are all imperfect, the most entire being 7½ inches in length, consisting of a pair of buckler-like discs, ornamented with bosses and concentric circles, and connected by a band ornamented with zigzags and pellets, all in _repoussé_ work. It is difficult even to conjecture what may have been their use. They are of silvered bronze, and if they had occurred in the man’s grave, they might have been supposed to have been ornamental mountings of the shield. But Mr. Campbell’s testimony as to their occurrence in the grave of the woman is distinct, and it is equally clear from their form and character, that they are objects of ornament, but neither the form nor the character of the objects gives any clue to the manner in which they were worn.

The silver hair-pin (Fig. 22), with globular head and ring attached by a loop, is 5 inches in length. The globular head is ornamented with double reversing spiral scrolls of filigree work of notched wire, finely executed. The ring of wire which hangs in the loop on the summit of the globular head of the pin, is also notched, and the ends twisted round each other in a fashion which is characteristic of many similarly joined rings of this type; as, for instance, the ring attached to the end of the chain of knitted wire to be next described.

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.

Footnote 20:

A portion of a similar chain occurred in the Croy find (_Scotland in Early Christian Times_, Second Series, p. 23); also in the Skaill hoard, to be subsequently described; in the hoard at Cuerdale; and in a small hoard found in the Isle of Inchkenneth.

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.

Fig. 26.—Implement of Black Glass, from grave No. 2 at Ballinaby (3 inches in diameter).

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.

Footnote 21:

For this reason the geographical distribution of these brooches marks the range of the Scandinavian conquests of the ninth and tenth centuries. In Iceland, in Russian Livonia, in Normandy, in England, in Ireland, and on our own shores in Shetland, Orkney, Caithness, and Sutherland, and in the Hebrides, including even the remote St. Kilda, their presence attests the historical fact of the Viking settlements from Norway. But the area in which they are specially abundant, of course, is in Scandinavia itself. I find on comparing the different records that there are now upwards of five hundred of them known in Norway. When we add the number known in Sweden, which exceeds four hundred, and those of Denmark, which only amount to thirty-eight, we have a gross total of nearly a thousand, of which the larger portion are from Norway. No archæological period in any country is marked by such a distinctly peculiar and characteristic type.

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]

Footnote 22:

In a letter to me acknowledging receipt of a copy of my “Notes of the Relics of the Viking Period of the Northmen in Scotland,” Professor Rygh, Curator of the Museum at Christiania, says:—“Among the oval brooches which you have figured, there is not one that might not have been found in Norway. The brooch from Pierowall is of a form exceedingly common with us, of which I know no fewer than one hundred and eight specimens. The commonest form of all in Norway is that of the brooches from Islay and Tiree, of which we have one hundred and eighteen examples. The brooches from the Longhills at Wick belong to a variety of the last form well known with us, and that from Castletown in Caithness has many analogous examples here in Norway, although they are not so common as the two previously mentioned types.”

Footnote 23:

When showing the relics from the Ballinaby graves to a lady, she remarked that in her home in Caithness she remembered seeing a similar article of glass, which she was told was formerly used for a similar purpose. Though now resident in Edinburgh, she believed the implement was still preserved, and at my request she made search for it, found it, and sent it to the Museum. It is an implement so similar in form to the ancient specimen, that there can be no question as to the identity of type. It is of black bottle glass, 3 inches in diameter, and 1¾ inch thick, and is here engraved (Fig. 28) to the same scale as the specimen from the Ballinaby grave (Fig. 26). That the discovery of this lump of glass in a Pagan grave should be the means of bringing to light the existence of similar implements in Scotland which had continued in use till within living memory, is a curious illustration of the rapidity with which the knowledge of special implements and special processes becomes extinct when the implement has been superseded by a new form and its use rendered obsolete by an improved process. The placing of this specimen (of the modern type) in the Museum has brought to light other three specimens of modern calendaring implements of glass. They are of larger size and furnished with handles, which are also of glass.

Fig. 28.—Linen Smoother of Black Glass, modern (3 inches diameter).