378 ANINTJAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1953 



"rattle" at that time may have had the corroded fragments of the 

 rattle rings hanging on it, and these bits may have resembled prongs. 

 Nothing certain is known of the use of these rattles. They seem to 

 have had some connection with riding and traction harness and are 

 sometimes explained as the sleigh-driver's or the horseman's magic 

 rattle for keeping evil spirits at a distance. 



3. Ax blade, iron, 17.5 cm. long. This was covered completely with 

 rust, the removal of which by electricity has deprived the ax of the 

 whole of its original surface. The type is Jan Petersen's L (see his 

 fig. 43) ; period: second half of the tenth century and beginning of 

 the eleventh. 



4. Three small flat fragments of iron, more or less indeterminable. 

 Possibly, but not certainly, remnants of the edge of a shield boss. 

 I must say, however, that as it now appears in the museum at Toronto 

 the find does not seem to comprise indubitable shield-boss fragments. 



■ H P^^^ 



HOOK 



&1F^^W^^ 



TfNKLE -PINGS 



Figure 1. — "Rangel" (rattle) from a Norwegian Vikingtime man's grave. About two-fifths 

 natural size. (After O. Rygh, Norske Oldsager, No. 461, Christiania, 1885.) 



As the whole of this find now appears it may very well stand for 

 a Viking-age grave find from east Noi^way (more precisely 0stfold) 

 or possibly from the Trondheim region, but hardly from the west coirn- 

 try (where "rattles" are seldom found) . In 1939 Prof. A. W. Br0gger, 

 of Oslo, after seeing a photograph, remarked that the objects of the find 

 "correspond extremely well with the common custom of the 0stfold 

 in the 10th century." If we take the Beardmore find to be the 

 equipment of a Viking of the beginning of the 11th century, it must 

 be said that this sword was not of the latest fashion, but rather out 

 of date. Chronologically the sword and the ax do not harmonize 

 very well, but it is quite possible, nevertheless, that they were used 

 by the same man in the period round about A. D. 1000. 



Three questions now present themselves : Are these objects genuine 

 Norwegian Viking-age relics? Are they contemporary in the sense 



