METHODS OF HAFTING CELTS.

Any account of the various forms of celts and palstaves which have been discovered in this country, such as that attempted in the preceding chapters, would be incomplete without some observations as to the manner in which they were probably hafted or mounted for use, and some account of the discoveries which throw light upon that subject.

In a previous chapter I have cited numerous opinions of the older school of antiquaries as to the nature of these instruments or weapons, and the uses which they were intended to serve. Many of these opinions are so palpably absurd that it is needless again to refer to them. Others which regard the instruments as having been mounted in such a manner as to serve for axes or adzes, for chisels, or for spud-like tools or weapons, have an evident foundation in the necessities of the case. There can, in the first place, be no doubt that celts and palstaves were cutting tools or weapons. There can, in the second place, be but little doubt that they were not destined for direct use in the hand without the addition of any shaft or handle. In fact, with the palstave and socketed forms, it is evident that special provisions are made for a haft of some kind. In the third place, this haft, whether long or short, must either have been straight or crooked. If straight, a kind of chisel or spud must have resulted; if crooked or L-shaped, an axe, hatchet, or adze.

It is possible that the same form of bronze instruments may have been mounted both with straight and with L-shaped handles; but, as will subsequently be seen, the probability, judging from what few ancient handles have been discovered, is that the great majority were mounted with elbowed handles as axes. At the same time, from the form and small size of some celts, especially of some of those of the socketed variety, it is probable that they were used as chisels. Indeed, judging from the analogy of some other forms, and from the discovery at Everley, mentioned at p. 163, this may be regarded as certain.

As the discoveries of the original hafts of bronze celts have principally been made upon the Continent, I shall, in treating of this part of my subject, be compelled to have recourse to foreign rather than British illustrations. It will also, in speaking of the method of hafting, be desirable to make an attempt to trace the successive stages of development of the socketed celts; and, in connection with this part of the subject also, foreign examples will become of service.

And first, in illustration of the use of bronze blades as axes, rather than as spuds, or chisels of any kind, I may mention an instrument not uncommon in Hungary, and occasionally occurring in other parts of Southern Europe, which is perforated and similar in general form to our modern axe-heads of iron and steel. In Scandinavia also other varieties of these perforated axe-heads have been found. The common axe-like type has also been discovered among Assyrian antiquities. Another and distinct form which has been found in Egypt mounted as an axe or hatchet, with a wooden handle, is a flat blade not unlike the ordinary flat celt, except that instead of tapering at the butt-end it expands so as to have two more or less projecting horns, by which it was bound against the haft in a shallow socket provided for it. Egyptian axes mounted in this manner may be seen in many museums, and have been frequently figured in works on Egyptian antiquities.[528] The blade of an axe of this kind, formerly in the collection of the Rev. Sparrow Simpson, D.D., F.S.A.,[529] and by him presented to the British Museum, bears an inscription in hieroglyphics upon it, with cartouches probably containing the name of a shepherd king of the sixteenth or seventeenth dynasty. In my own collection is another bronze blade of the same shape and size, and with the same inscription, except that the names in the cartouches are different. Unfortunately this part of the blade is corroded, but Dr. S. Birch thinks that the cartouches contain the name either of Ramses I. or of a subordinate Ramses of the eighteenth dynasty. The hieroglyphics are the same on both faces of the blade, but on one run from right to left, and on the other from left to right. A hatchet of the same form, still bound to its haft, was found in the tomb of Queen Aah-Hotep,[530] of the eighteenth dynasty.

Some of the stone hatchets from Ecuador, in South America, are also provided with projecting ears, and were tied against their helves in the same manner.

The stone axe, said to be that of Montezuma II., preserved in the Ambras Museum at Vienna, and shown in Fig. 180, may also be of this kind. Copper or bronze blades of this crescent or cheese-cutter form, with two projecting lugs at the top of the narrow part of the blade, have been found in Peru.

Broad blades of bronze, in form more like the ordinary flat celts, but with the projections at the top, have been found in the same country. I have one about 5 inches long and 3 inches wide, with strong lugs at the top 2 inches long. It came from Eastern Peru.

Some blades of this form were hafted in a rather different manner, as will be seen by means of Fig. 181.

This represents an iron hatchet used by the Aymara Indians, of the province of La Paz, Bolivia, which was brought from that country and presented to me by my friend, the late Mr. David Forbes, F.R.S. In this form the handle is split, and the blade is secured by a leather thong, two turns of which pass under the two lugs of the blade, and thus prevent it from coming forward; two other turns pass over the butt-end, and thus prevent it from being driven backwards by any blow; while all the coils of the thong hold the cleft stick firmly against the two faces of the blade. Although no celts with the T-shaped butt-end have been found in Britain, or, indeed, in Western Europe, I have thought it worth while to engrave this curious example of the method of mounting such blades, especially as the central projections of the Irish form of celt, like Fig. 45, may have been secured by thongs in a somewhat analogous manner.

Turning now to the other British forms of celts, of which, as already observed, the flat and doubly tapering blades, like Fig. 2, seem to be the most ancient, it is probable that these were hafted by the butt-end being merely driven into a club or handle of wood, in the same manner as many stone celts appear to have been mounted. The modern iron hatchet, from Western Africa, shown in Fig. 182, will give a good idea of the manner in which the bronze celts that are so much like it in form were probably hafted. Another modern African axe has been engraved by Sir John Lubbock.[531] It is, of course, possible that some of the ancient flat celts were mounted after the manner of spuds, as is, by several German and Danish antiquaries, held to have been the case with those of the palstave form. It must, however, be borne in mind that as a rule the stone celts, which the earliest of those in bronze must in all probability have supplanted, were mounted after the manner of hatchets. Moreover, the few stone celts, the axis of the straight handle of which was in the same direction as the blade, appear to have been hafted with short handles as chisels, and not with long shafts as spuds. Among those found still attached to their hafts in the Swiss lake dwellings, some few were mounted in short stag’s-horn handles as chisels, but the majority were fitted for use as hatchets, with a club-like handle, in which a short stag’s-horn socket was mortised as affording a receptacle for the stone, harder and less liable to split than those of wood. In some cases, however, the handles were made from a bough of a tree with a short projecting branch, which was cleft to receive the stone. One of these, from Robenhausen, is shown in Fig. 183, which is copied from Dr. Keller’s work.[532]

In Britain the traces of the original handles of bronze celts have been not unfrequently found, though the actual wood had perished.

In a barrow in the parish of Butterwick,[533] Canon Greenwell, F.R.S., found what he describes as “an axe-blade of bronze,” engraved as Fig. 2, which lay with a skeleton, and “the handle, which had been under two feet in length, could be plainly traced by means of a dark line of decayed wood extending from the hips towards the heels; moreover, from the presence of decayed wood on the sides of the blade, it would seem as if the axe had been protected by a wooden sheath. To all appearance the weapon had been worn slung from the waist.” In this case the blade had been fixed, apparently after the manner of Fig. 182, into a solid handle to the depth of two inches, as is evident from the surface of the metal being oxidized on that part of the blade differently from what it is elsewhere.

In a barrow at Shuttlestone,[534] near Parwich, Derbyshire, Mr. Bateman found about the middle of the left thigh of a skeleton a bronze celt, of “the plainest axe-shaped type. The cutting edge was turned upwards towards the upper part of the person, and the instrument itself has been inserted vertically into a wooden handle by being driven in for about two inches at the narrow end—at least, the grain of the wood runs in the same direction as the longest dimension of the celt.” “A fact,” adds Mr. Bateman, “not unworthy of the notice of any inclined to explain the precise manner of mounting these curious implements.” It may be remarked, however, that no part of the handle itself, beyond this grain upon the bronze, was preserved, and that this direction of the grain of the wood would be quite consistent with the blade having been mounted in a side branch from the shaft, after the manner of the Swiss stone celt shown in Fig. 183.

It appears to me possible that in other cases where the marks of the grain of the wood, or even the traces of the wood itself, have been found upon celts, running along and not across the blade, the somewhat hasty conclusion has been drawn that they were attached to the end of straight shafts instead of into side branches; and that possibly this opinion, when once accepted, may have affected insensibly the reports of the position of the blade of the celts with regard to the bodies with which they were found, and to the traces of their shafts.

The opinion first enounced by J. A. Fabricius that the celt was the ancient German framea or spear mentioned by Tacitus, seems also insensibly to have affected observers.

There is an account given by Thorlacius[535] of the discovery in a tumulus near Store-Hedinge, in Denmark, of a palstave with the wooden shaft an ell and a quarter long, into which the blade was inserted; the wood, as might have been expected, running down between the side wings; at the other end of the shaft there was a leather strap wound round for about a quarter of an ell. The whole was so decayed that not the least part of it could be taken out of the ground. Although nothing appears to be said with regard to the position of the palstave with respect to the shaft, this has been cited by Lisch[536] and others in evidence of this form of instrument having been mounted spud-fashion, as a kind of chisel-ended spear. A more conclusive instance is that adduced by Westendorp,[537] who has figured a socketed celt without a loop, found in a fen in the province of Groningen, Holland, mounted in this manner on a straight shaft. I have, however, already remarked that some of the socketed celts of this character were probably used as chisels.

Whatever reliance may be placed upon the older discoveries, all those of more recent times are in favour of the instruments of the palstave form having been mounted as axes, hatchets, or adzes. In the museum at Salzburg, Austria, there are at least four crooked handles for this kind of blade, found in the salt-mines of Hallein, one of which is shown in the annexed cut. I am not, however, sure whether the blade was actually found with the haft in which it is now placed, nor, if so, whether it was originally in its present position with the loop outwards. It looks much more like an Italian than a German specimen, which has been added to the haft in recent times, and it has not the appearance of having been exposed for centuries to the action of salt. It seems more probable that the salt, which has fortunately had the power of preserving the wood, would in course of years have dissolved the whole of the metal, assuming that at the time when the haft was lost, or left in the mine, a blade was still attached to it, than that it should have left the metal, as here, almost uninjured. In this instance, moreover, the haft is perfect, and not, as in some of the other cases, broken, so as to raise an inference of their having been thrown away. The position of the blade with the loop outwards is also suspicious.

A broken example of the same kind of haft, also from the salt-mines of Hallein, has been figured by Klemm,[538] and is to be seen in the British Museum. There are others in the museum at Linz.

Handles of the same kind, intended for palstaves, have been found in the Italian lake dwellings. In some discovered in the “palafitta” of Castione,[539] the notch is in the transverse direction to the shaft, as if the blade had been mounted as an adze, and not as an axe. In others the notch is longitudinal, and not transverse. In one instance the side branch has no notch, but there is a shoulder on it, as if it had served for a socketed celt.

A looped palstave, mounted in a similar branched handle, has been found at the lake dwelling of Moerigen,[540] on the Lac de Bienne. In this case also the loop is on the farther side of the shaft.

That the flanged and winged celts and palstaves were, as a rule, destined to be mounted in the manner of hatchets or adzes, and not as spuds or spear-heads, is to some extent witnessed by the development of their form; the progressive increase in the size of the wings and flanges, more especially about the middle of the blade, appearing to be intended as a precaution against lateral strains, such as the blade of an axe undergoes, rather than against a mere thrust, such as that to which the head of a spear or lance is subject. Of course the stop-ridge is a preservative against the blade being driven back into its handle, in whatever way it is mounted. But the flanges, at first slight, then expanding at the middle of the blade, then becoming projecting wings, and finally being bent over, so as to form side sockets on each side of the blade, seem rather the result of successive endeavours to steady the blade against a sideways strain.

This development can best be traced in the series of flat celts, flanged and winged celts, and palstaves, discovered in the South of France.

Even the long narrow palstaves, which have so much the appearance of chisels, seem to have been mounted on crooked shafts. There is a long German[541] form with a narrow butt above the stop-ridge, and with but slight side flanges, which are continued down along the sides of the blade below the ridge, that seems much more like a chisel than a hatchet. The usual length of this form is about 6 inches, and the width at the edge about 1½ inches, that of the butt-end, including the side flanches, being about ¾ inch.

But that palstaves of this kind were mounted as hatchets will be evident from an inspection of Fig. 185, which represents a specimen in my own collection, found in the district of Raron, near Brigue, Valais, Switzerland. It is, as will be seen, in fact, a socketed celt, but with the socket at right angles to the axis of the blade. The reason why it should have been cast in this manner is probably to be found in the fact that boughs of trees with a smaller branch at right angles to them are not easily met with, though such boughs are best adapted for conversion into the helves of this kind of hatchet. Some ingenious bronze-founder of old times conceived the idea of producing a hatchet which did not require a crooked helve, but for hafting which any ordinary straight stick would serve; and we have here his new form of axe-head. In practice, however, it was probably found both to balance badly, and to be expensive in metal, and the design appears not to have spread, as up to the present time this specimen seems to be unique. The most remarkable features in it have still to be noticed. The pattern from which it was cast seems to have been a palstave already mounted on its haft, and we have here the smooth and rounded end of the bough, with the smaller side branch running off at right angles, reproduced in bronze. Even the band by which the blade was secured in the cleft part of the handle is reproduced as a spiral moulding. The banding which extends to the mouth of the socket is also spiral, and probably represents a binding round the original wooden handle at the part where, from experience, it was found most liable to break. The straight haft of this hatchet was secured in its place by a bronze rivet passing through the socket from side to side, which is still in its place, though all trace of the wood has disappeared.

With this singular celt was found a small dagger, 6½ inches long, which had been secured to its hilt by four rivets, and a penannular bracelet decorated with ring ornaments. It is remarkable how well the discovery of this form of celt bears out the theoretical suggestions of Sir Joseph Banks,[542] Sir Samuel Meyrick,[543] Mr. Dunoyer,[544] and others, including Sir W. Wilde.[545] Indeed, Dr. Richard Richardson[546] many years ago advanced the same opinion as to the manner in which such celts were hafted.

With regard to the usual manner of mounting those of the socketed form there can be but little doubt, as in some few instances the original handles have been preserved with them.

One such, found in the bed of the river Boyne, near Edenderry, King’s County, has been figured by Wilde,[547] whose cut, by the kind permission of the Royal Irish Academy, is here reproduced as Fig. 186. The helve is only 13¾ inches long, but seems well adapted to the size of the blade. So far as I know this is the only instance of such a discovery within the United Kingdom.

In Fig. 187, however, is shown an Italian socketed celt of a common form, with the original handle still attached. This specimen is in my own collection, and was found about the year 1872 in the neighbourhood of Chiusi, Tuscany. With it were another, also retaining its handle, a large fibula of silver, a scarabÆus, and many small square plates of bronze, each having a fylfot cross upon it, probably the ornaments of a girdle. All these objects had been buried in an urn, which was covered by a slab of stone, and most of them are to be seen in the Etruscan Museum at Florence. With the exception of a fracture not far from the angle, the handle of my specimen is perfect. The preservation is due to its having been entirely coated with thin plates of bronze, the sides of which overlap, and have been secured round the handle by round-headed nails about ¾ inch apart.

This plating is turned over square at the end of the handle, where there is a little projecting bronze eye, through which a ring may have passed, so as to serve for its suspension. At the sides above the celt there are some larger round-headed nails, or possibly rivets; and the end of the branch which goes into the socket appears to be secured by a rivet, which passes through from face to face. At the end of the handle itself, above the celt, is a nearly circular flat bronze plate, with a round-headed nail in the middle to attach it to the wood. The fracture exposes the wood inside the plates, which has been preserved by the salts, or oxide, of copper. It has been thought to be oak. On the blade of the celt are some flakes of oxide of iron, as if it had lain in contact with some articles made of that metal. Indeed, from the form, as well as from the objects found with it, the presumption is that this instrument belongs to quite the end of the Bronze Age of Italy, or to the transitional period between bronze and iron.

It may be well here to mention that celts of iron of the flat form, with projections at the sides like Fig. 45; of the palstave kind, with the semicircular side sockets; and of the socketed form, have been found in the cemetery at Hallstatt, in Austria, the researches in which of Herr Ramsauer have been described by Baron Von Sacken. These discoveries seem to show that all three varieties were still in use at the close of the Bronze Period. In the same cemetery celts of the two last-mentioned forms were found in bronze, and palstaves occurred with the wings formed of bronze and the blade of iron.

In 1866 I exhumed from this cemetery with my own hands, when in company with Sir John Lubbock, a socketed celt of iron, with a portion of the haft still in it. The celt is attached to a branch of the main handle, which projects at an angle of about 80°. This has been split off from the handle, only a small part of which remains attached; and it is this portion only of the wood which has been preserved by the infiltration of some salts of iron, while the rest, which was detached from contact with metal, has disappeared. The wood of which the handle was made appears to be fir. On an iron palstave from the same spot it seems to be oak. On two bronze palstaves from France in my own collection, one from Amiens and the other from the Seine, at Paris, the portions of wood which still remain attached to the blades appear also to be oak.

In the Hallstatt specimen the inclination of the blade seems to have been towards the hand, and the part of the handle beyond the branch which enters the socket presents some appearance of having been bound with an iron ferrule, probably with the view of preventing it from splitting. The projection is somewhat longer proportionally than that in Fig. 185, and the end appears to have been truncated, and not rounded.

There have been in this country a few instances of the discovery of bronze rings in company with palstaves and socketed celts, and these rings may possibly have served a similar purpose, though it must be confessed that such an use is purely conjectural. That shown in Fig. 188 was found in company with a bronze palstave without a loop, but much like Fig. 74, at Winwick,[548] near Warrington, Lancashire, and was kindly lent me by Dr. James Kendrick, who in 1858[549] suggested that it was a “sort of ferrule to put round the handle of the palstave to prevent the wood from splitting when the instrument was struck.” The ornament on the ring, somewhat like the “broad arrow” of modern times, is of much the same character as the shield-like pattern below the stop-ridge of some palstaves. In the British Museum is a stone mould from Northumberland for flat rings, 3 inches in diameter, and for flat celts; but such rings probably served some other purpose.

Another bronze ring, 1? inches in diameter, was found with a socketed celt in the Thames,[550] opposite Somerset House, but here the actual association of the two is doubtful.

I have already expressed a doubt whether the celt from Tadcaster, Yorkshire, and now in the British Museum, had, when found, the bronze ring with a jet bead upon it passing through the loop. The ring itself is made not of one continuous piece of metal, but of stout wire, with the ends abutting against each other, and nothing would be easier for the workman who found the three objects than to pass the ring through the loop of the celt and the hole of the bead. I have myself received from Hungary two socketed celts, each having imperfect penannular bracelets passed through the loop in the same manner, though they certainly had no original connection with the celts. It is, however, but right to mention that in the British Museum is the upper part of a celt with an octagonal neck, found with other objects near Kensington, on the loop of which is a small ring, barely large enough to encircle the loop. Of what service this could have been it is difficult to imagine.

If the association of the larger rings and the celts must be given up, it is needless to cite the opinions which have been held as to the use of the one in connection with the other. Some references are given in the note.[551]

The early Iron Age of Denmark is no doubt considerably later in date than that of Hallstatt, but in several of the discoveries of objects of that period in Denmark socketed celts of iron have been found still attached to their helves. In the Nydam find[552], described by Mr. Conrad Engelhardt, the majority of the axes were of the ordinary form, with eyes for the shafts; but there were some also of the form of the socketed celt, though without any loops. These were mounted as axes, and not as adzes, on crooked handles about 17 inches long. The helves of axes of the ordinary form were from 23 to 32 inches in length. In the Vimose find[553] there were several of these iron celts, one of which was thought to have been mounted on a crooked handle, but the others appear to have been mounted as chisels.

The palstaves with the edges transverse to the septum between the side flanges seem to have been mounted in precisely the same manner as those of the ordinary form, except that when attached to their handles they formed adzes, and not axes. It has been suggested[554] that the palstaves of the ordinary form may also have been mounted as adzes, and probably this was so in some exceptional cases. Mention has already been made of some Italian helves with transverse notches for the reception of the blade. Some of the flat celts may have also been mounted as adzes by binding them against the shorter end of an L-shaped handle, in the same manner as the Egyptians fixed their adze blades.

In some palstaves, but more especially in those of the South of Europe, there is at the butt-end of the blade a kind of dovetailed notch, which appears to have been formed by hammering over a part of the jets or runners of the original castings, which were left projecting a short distance instead of being broken off short at the blade. Whether the hammering over was for the purpose of rounding the angles or for that of forming this dovetailed notch is somewhat uncertain; it is, however, possible that one or more pins or rivets may have been driven through the handle, so as to catch the dovetails and retain the blade in its place. It is not often the case that this portion of the blade is so long that it would have gone through the handle and have allowed of a pin beyond it, as suggested by Mr. Dunoyer[555] in the case of a long palstave, with a rivet-hole near the butt-end of the blade. A palstave, found in a tomb in the department of Loir et Cher,[556] by my friend the late AbbÉ Bourgeois, is provided with a rivet-hole near the top, counter-sunk on either side so as to guide a pin into the place intended for it; and it seems probable, as the AbbÉ suggests, that this was connected with the securing of the blade, which is destitute of a loop, to the helve. Of six thin flat bronze celts, 7 or 8 inches long, from the Island of Thermia,[557] or Cythnos, in the Greek Archipelago, which are now in the British Museum, three that are broad are provided with square or lozenge-shaped holes towards the upper end of the blade, and three that are narrower are without. A flanged celt from Italy,[558] 6 inches long, has a circular hole in the same position, which may have received a pin. Some contrivance for keeping blades of smooth bronze fast in their handles must have been necessary or desirable from the earliest times. With stone celts we often find that the butt-end destined to be let into the wooden or horn socket was purposely roughened. With bronze, however, such a process does not seem to have been adopted to any extent; and probably with blades of bronze, so much less tapering than those of stone, the difficulty of keeping them in place was surmounted by attaching them with some sort of resinous or pitchy cement. A safe remedy against slipping out was no doubt found in the addition of the ring or loop to the side, which there can be but little doubt served for a cord to pass through, so as to hold the blade back to the handle. In a socketed celt, 5½ inches long, found in the Seine, at Paris, and now in my own collection, not only is the wood preserved in the socket by saturation with some salt of copper, but within the upper part of the loop there are distinct traces of a cord which was apparently formed of vegetable fibre. The Irish palstave, Fig. 105, with the curved projection instead of the usual loop, seems to show that it was only against the upper part of the loop that the strain came. No doubt, however, there was more strength in the loop attached to the blade at both ends than in the mere neb or projection. Some Italian socketed celts have similar projecting nebs, one on either side. In the case of the palstaves and celts with two loops, it seems probable that the handle must have been somewhat prolonged beyond the side branch, which received the palstave or went into the socket of the celt.

It has been stated that some of the Spanish palstaves[559] with two loops were, when first discovered, attached to a straight handle of wood. But this opinion may have been formed from the grain of the wood impressed on the upper part of the blade running along and not across it. In the first account[560] given of the discovery, these palstaves were regarded as having been used for picking out the strata of coal, and one of them is said to have been firmly attached to a wooden handle by means of thongs interlaced and held by notches in the wood. This handle was described as having been straight, so that the instrument was fitted to be used as a crowbar and not as a hatchet. But inasmuch as the groove for the handle is only 2¼ inches long and ½ inch wide, while the length of the blade projecting beyond the handle is nearly 5 inches, it is almost impossible for it to have served in this manner.

Axe-heads of bronze of the modern form with an eye through them to receive a straight helve have not been found in this country, though, as already observed, they are not uncommon in Hungary, Southern Germany, and Italy. That the form was already known in Greece in the Homeric Age is evident from the feat of skill in shooting an arrow through the shaft holes of a number of axe-heads, arranged in a row, recorded in the Odyssey.[561] I have in my collection a fine double-edged axe, or p??e???, from Greece, 8½ inches in length, with a round shaft-hole ? inch in diameter. I have also two from Salamis.

Looking at the widespread distribution of perforated stone implements, especially battle-axes, throughout Europe, it seems strange that so few bronze weapons of the same class should be found. Possibly, however, these stone weapons may have remained in use even until the latter part of the Bronze Period, as they certainly did through the earlier part of it. In this country it seems doubtful whether any of the perforated battle-axes of stone belong to a time when bronze was absolutely unknown, as bronze knife-daggers, like Fig. 279, have so often been found associated with them in interments. Hungary is the country in which the perforated bronze battle-axes seem to have arrived at their fullest development, many of them being of graceful form and beautiful workmanship. The perforated copper implements of that country were probably used for agricultural purposes, and I see no reason for assigning them to so early a date as the commencement of the Bronze Period of Hungary. They may, indeed, belong to a much later period. It is hard to account for this absence of perforated axes of bronze in Britain, but various causes seem to have conduced to render their introduction difficult. When first bronze came into use it must have been extremely scarce and valuable; and to cast an axe-head in bronze, like one of the perforated axe-hammers of stone, would have required not only a considerably greater amount of the then precious metal than was required for a flat hatchet-head, but would also have involved a far higher skill in the art of casting. Moreover, the flat form of these simple blades rendered them well adapted for being readily drawn out to a sharp cutting edge, and when once they had come into general use they would not have been readily superseded by those of another form, hafted in a different method, even were that method more simple. If the bronze celts were mainly in use for peaceful industries, while the warlike battle-axes were made of stone, the progressive modifications in the shape of the former would be less likely to be affected by the characteristics of the latter. It must also be remembered that in France,[562] which then as now set the fashion to Britain, perforated axe-heads of stone were very seldom used, and those of bronze were in the north of the country unknown.

But, to return to the celts of the British Islands, there can, I think, be but little doubt that the loop is, as already described, connected with the method of mounting these instruments on their hafts; and is not intended for the attachment of a cord, by which they might be withdrawn and recovered after they had been thrown at the enemy. Like the American tomahawks, they may, no doubt, have occasionally been used as “missile hatchets,” the “missiles secures” of Sidonius;[563] but the days of young Sigimer, whose followers were provided with these weapons, are many centuries more recent than those to which the bronze celts must be referred.

In the same manner, any idea of the loops having merely served for hanging these instruments at the girdle may be at once discarded. For such a purpose the projection which we find substituted for the loop would be useless, and the presence of two loops would be superfluous.

On the whole, we may conclude that the majority of these instruments were mounted for use, somewhat in the manner described, so as to serve as axes or adzes. A smaller proportion of them may, however, not improbably have been provided with short straight handles, to serve as chisels, especially the socketed celts of small size and without loops. This is the more probable as several socketed instruments closely resembling them in character cannot be regarded as other than chisels and gouges. No example, however, of a socketed celt provided with a handle of this kind has as yet been found. The little instrument of brass fixed into a handle made of stag’s horn, which was found in a cist in a barrow at Everley,[564] Wilts, by Sir R. Colt Hoare, has more the appearance of being a tanged chisel, such as will subsequently be described, than a flat celt. It is shown full size in Fig. 189, which I have copied from Sir R. C. Hoare’s plate. There were no bones or ashes found in the cist, but several pointed instruments, and what appears to be a kind of long, flat bead of bone, as well as two whetstones of freestone, and a hone of a blueish colour had been deposited with it.

Professor Worsaae[565] has published an engraving of a narrow Danish palstave, which was found in a hill in Jutland fastened to its handle by three rings of leather. This handle was straight, but unlike that from Store Hedinage, which was an ell and a quarter long, was not more than about 8 inches in length. In some other instances, he says, the blade has been fastened to the handle by nails or rivets.

I have already mentioned that some of the socketed celts of iron belonging to the early Iron Age of Denmark have been found mounted as chisels. A good example of one thus hafted has been figured by Engelhardt.[566] The part of the handle which goes into the socket is tapered to fit it. Above this the handle expands with a shoulder projecting somewhat beyond the outside of the celt. It continues of this size for about 1½ inches, and is then again reduced to the same size as the mouth of the celt. The whole of the handle beyond the metal is about 4 inches in length.

Having said thus much with regard to the early iron chisels, it will, however, now be well to proceed to the consideration of those formed of bronze, and of the other bronze tools found in this country.