224 



j/otcst of ti)t ^cafe. 



By \y. J. Andrew, F.S.A. 



N June, 1900, in constructing tlie new line of the 



Midland Railway in Furness Vale, where the new 



and the old lines diverge, was found : — 



An Iron or Steel Hunting Sword, with heavy mushroom-shaped pommel, 



the remains of one of the quilh ns springing towards the pommel for 



the Knuckle-bow, the grip wanting, the tongue tapering from | of an 



inch in breadth. The blade, 16 inches long, slightly tapering from 



I J inch wide and single edged. The length of the whole is 21 inches, 



and it bears evidence of having been buried in its sheath, for the 



grain of iis wooden lining and the impression of its upper ferrule are 



distinctly corrcded into the blade. 



Viscount Dillon, President of the Society of Antiquaries, has 



kindly given me the following information : " It is clear that the 



turned up end of the quillon is part of a knuckle-bow and, as 



Hewitt has shown in Archaological Joiutial, xix., p. 310, the 



Knuckle-bow, or finger guard, does not appear before the fourth 



quarter of the fifteenth century. But the small depth at which it 



was found and the existence of remains of the wooden lining of 



the sheatl), both seem to me to indicate that a somewhat later 



date must be assigned to it." 



Mr. Joseph Brassington, who presented the relic to me, noticed 

 that, when found, it was lying amongst some bones. Were these 

 the bones of its owner, or of the deer which he, some sixteenth 

 century hunter in the then Royal Forest of the Peak, had slain ? 

 Or was it merely such a case, as Pepys records in his famous 

 diary : " This day my cousin Thomas dropped his hanger, and it 

 was lost " ? 



