J^O. 8] A CELTIC RELIQUARY. 19 



faet that the fibula is found in association with tvvo bowl-shaped 

 brooches of the early form R. 643, tiie making of which must be 

 attributed to the 8th centuty and certainly before that of the large 

 fibula.^) I cannot therefore be far mistaken, if I refer the large 

 fibula to the middle of the latter half of the 8th centur}', viz. about 

 A. D. 775. It is, hovvever, another ques^ion at what time the 

 objects vvere deposited in the grave, 'l'his can naturally only be 

 a malter of conjecture. As vvill be shown below, historical reasons, 

 hovvevei-, make it probable that the burial has not taken place 

 before A. D. 800. On the other hånd the earl}^ nature of the 

 equipment points to a period not far removed. The burial should 

 therefore most likely be attributed to the first part of the 9th 

 Century. 



The year 793 A. D. is generall^^ regarded as the beginning 

 of the Viking age, in that 3'ear the church and cloister on the Isle 

 of Lindisfarne in Northumberland, according to an zAnglo-Saxon 

 chronicle,-) being ravaged by heathens. Later researches^), however, 

 have made it probable that even before this time intercourse be- 

 tween Scandinavia and the British Isles had begun, this certainly 

 not always of a peaceable nature. Thus Irish annals record raids 

 undertaken as early as the beginning of the 7th century on the 

 coast of Iieland and the Hebrides by pagans, who may be as- 

 sumed to have been Scandinavians from the Shetland Isles, where 

 Northern men must early have settled. In the time betvveen these 

 raids and the plundering of the church on Lindisfarne no doubt 

 smaller predatory excursions not mentioned in any annalistic record 

 may have taken place."*) Some of the Celtic antiquities found in 

 Norway may thus have been carried to this country before A. D. 



ration of the Melhus brooch belongs to the middle of this st^'le-period. B. 



S a 1 i n, Die altgermanische ThierornameiiriU, pp. 27( • ff., SoO. Comp. espe- 



cially p. 281. 

 1) Comp. Ab. 1905, 367 f. 



-) Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. T h o r p e, A. \). 19'.i. 

 ^) Cf. A 1 e X. li u g g e, Vesterlandenes Indflydelse paa Nordboernes og særlig 



Nordmændenes ydre K'uliur, Levesæt og Samfundsforhold i Vikingetiden, 



Chra. 1'X.io, pp. 8, Il f., 307 ff., and the literature cited by this autlu>r. 

 '•) Sec Alex. Bugge I. c. p. 8. 



