NORSEMEN IN NORTH AMERICA— BR0NDSTBD 377 



THE BEARDMORE FIND 



Preserved in the Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology at Toronto, 

 Canada, is a find from a spot near the village of Beardmore, Ontario, 

 about 7 miles from Lake Nipigon. It consists of three east-Norwegian 

 Viking-age iron objects (pi. 1). With the kind permission of Prof. 

 T. F. Mcllwraith, keeper of the Royal Ontario Museimi's department 

 of ethnology, I have made an examination of this find. 



1. A fragmentary iron sword, broken above the middle of the blade. 

 Both the pommel and the point of the blade are missing. The total 

 length of the original blade may be estimated at about 0.70 m. and the 

 whole length of the sword at about 0.85 m. The sword had been 

 covered with rust which had been removed in the museum by electric 

 means, for which reason only parts of the original surface of the blade 

 and of the edges remain. This sword may be placed to type M in Jan 

 Petersen's "De Norske Vikingesverd," 1919, page 117 et seq., figures 

 98 and 99 (from about A. D. 850-950). 



2. A flat band of iron, 19 cm. long, 2.7 cm. wide. One end is rolled 

 up ; at this end the band is rectangular in cross section and narrow, 

 very thin at the extreme end and pierced with a round hole. At the 

 other end, too, the band narrows into a rectangular rod which, how- 

 ever, is bent over in a swan's-neck curve. There is a fracture at this 

 end, whereas the other is intact. The latter end seems to have been 

 forced out to the side. On this object again the original surface has 

 disappeared as a consequence of the electric treatment. 



This object is generally considered to be a shield handle — which it 

 certainly is not. There are no holes for rivets, and Norwegian Viking 

 shields never have handles of iron. It is more likely that the band was 

 once the upper part (the hoop) of the object which Norwegian arche- 

 ologists call a "rangel" (rattle) and which is often found in east Nor- 

 wegian (less often in west Norwegian) men's graves of Viking times. 

 (See O. Rygh, Norske Oldsager, 1885, Nos. 460-464; Jan Petersen, 

 Vikingetidens Redskaper, 1951, p. 42 et seq.; here fig. 1.) These rat- 

 tles consist of a bent-over round or flat iron bar (the hoop, fig. 1) on 

 wliich are hung several rings and sometimes small bells, i. e., objects 

 that rattle or tinkle when shaken. The object may have been placed 

 on the end of a stick or furnished with a suspension hook. If we can 

 imagine that the now-broken end of the iron band originally was long 

 enough to reach the coil at the other end and was secured in the hole 

 there, we have the upper part (the hoop) of a rattle. 



"William Feltham, one of the persons alleged to have seen the Beard- 

 more find shortly after its discovery, describes our object thus : ". . . 

 what looked like the handle of a shield with three prongs." The 



