A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



are not given, but the buckler here seems to have lain on the face of 

 the warrior, while the spear was placed at the side ; and each body had 

 been wrapped in a woollen cloak fastened at the breast. Nothing could 

 be preserved of the shields but the boss of one of them, which had been 

 penetrated by a spear. Some beads lay on what was thought to be the 

 skeleton of a woman ; and in another mound was the skeleton of a horse 

 and a large quantity of diminutive bones. Such discoveries are not un- 

 common in graves of this period in England and on the continent, and 

 at least point to the closest of ties between the horse and his rider. 

 Whatever the feeling that gave rise to the practice, whether to provide 

 the fallen warrior with a means of transport beyond the grave, or to pro- 

 pitiate the goddess of the unseen world by a splendid sacrifice, it seems 

 clear that the interments were intentionally side by side ; and it should 

 not surprise us to find so valuable an animal slaughtered at his master's 

 grave in a region of dry and open heaths where horse-breeding has from 

 the earliest times been conducted on a large scale.* 



Among the antiquities from Sporle is one of a pair of bronze shanks 

 which had evidently been joined like those figured by Roach Smith from 

 Searby, Lines. ^ This was found some time before 1847 in a grave- 

 mound which was of large size and contained several skeletons. By the 

 side of one of them (conjectured from the presence of beads and absence 

 of weapons to be that of a female) lay these objects, and under them an 

 iron buckle which seems to have been attached to something that had the 

 appearance of a girdle, on which is impressed the texture of the cloth. 

 On this basis Roach Smith considered the question settled, and pronounced 

 these rather mysterious objects to be pendent girdle-ornaments somewhat 

 analogous to the modern chatelaine. He compares them with continental 

 specimens figured on his pi. Ivi. A better engraving of the Sporle 

 specimen is to be found in the Norwich volume of the Archsological 

 Institute, 1851, p. xxvi., where two views are given. In the same 

 neighbourhood, on Cotes Common two square-headed brooches^ were 

 discovered in a mound, resembling specimens given in Akerman's 

 Archceologtcal Index, pi. xvii. figs. 3, 4, while close by at Swaffham 

 several brooches of various dates have come to light. Some are described* 

 as of the Anglo-Saxon period and are perhaps sufficient evidence of 

 unburnt interments at this site just off the Peddar's Way. A specimen 

 belonging to a common Roman type is fully described in the Norfolk 

 Archaology^ but that it may have been buried in an Anglian grave is 

 rendered possible by the discovery of similar specimens in graves of this 

 period, as at Long Wittenham and Frilford, Berks. Besides these last, 

 another Swaffham brooch® of somewhat later date is now in the British 

 Museum. It is bronze of circular form with roughly incised edging, the 



* For example, the ' great army ' was horsed here in 866. 



* Collectanea Antiqua, vol. ii. p. 234, pi. Ivi. fig. 2. 



* Called ' cruciform' in Norwich volume oi Anhieological Institute, p. xxx. 



* Journal of British Archaolo^cal Association, vol. ii. p. 346. 



^ Vol. v. p. 356. ^ Presented by Mr. Henry Plowright in 1854. 



