228 THE BRONZE AXE. 



patterns are manifold, many other tools or implements 

 occur abundantly in the barrows or caches. Chisels, 

 either plain, tanged, with lugs, or socketed; gouges, 

 hammers, anvils, and tongs ; punches, awls, drills, and 

 prickers ; tweezers, needles, fish-hooks, and weights ; all 

 these are found by dozens in endless variety of design. 

 Knives are common, and the vanity of Bronze Age man 

 made him even put up without a murmur with the pangs 

 of shaving with a bronze razor. Daggers and rapiers 

 naturally abound, many of them of rare and beautiful 

 workmanship. Halberds turn up less frequently, but swords 

 are abundant, and are sometimes tastefully decorated with 

 gold or ivory. Even the scabbards sometimes survive, 

 while the shields, adorned with concentric rings or with 

 knobs and bosses, would put to shame the rank and file 

 of cheap modern metal work. Nay, the very trumpets 

 which sounded the onset often lie buried by the warrior's 

 side, and the bells which adorned his horse's neck bring 

 back to us vividly the Homeric pictures of Bronze Age 

 warfare. 



The private life of Bronze Age man and his correlative 

 wife is illustrated for us by another great group of more 

 strictly personal relics. There are pins simple and pins 

 of the infantile safety-pin order : there are brooches 

 which might be worn by modern ladies, and ear-rings so 

 huge that even modern ladies would in all probability 

 object to wearing them, unless, indeed, a princess or an 

 actress made them the fashion. The torques, or neck- 

 lets, are among the best known male decorations, and are 

 still famous in Ireland, where Malachi (whoever he 

 may have been) wore the collar of gold which he tore 



