2o8 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



inscription, and therefore older than the use of Runic 

 letters on medals. 



In the eleventh century, shoes appear to have been in 

 general use, for it is recorded that Oluf Kyrre, the first 

 Norwegian king, caused those who sought his court to 

 shoe their horses with golden shoes. 



Recent discoveries in the peat-mosses of Thorsbjerg 

 and Nydam in Sleswig have exposed remains of men 

 and horses, supposed to have found their way there in 

 the ' early iron period of the third and fourth centuries ; ' 

 but no shoes were found, though there were bridles, spurs, 

 and nose-pieces to protect the horse's nose. Skulls and 

 bones of horses, sometimes almost complete skeletons, were 

 noted, and the state in which they were found is curious. 

 ' Near a tolerably complete skeleton of a horse, were found, 

 besides shield-boards, shafts of lances, and other wooden 

 objects, several beads, two iron bits, several metal mount- 

 ings for shields, an iron spear-head, a whetstone, several 

 arrow-heads, an awl of iron, and a Roman silver denarius. 

 Not far from it were two skulls and other remains of 

 horses, and near them some iron-bits. The skulls of 

 horses, which, just as those last mentioned, appeared to have 

 been deposited without the other parts of the animals, had 

 still their bits in their mouths, one of the bits being in- 

 complete and evidently deposited in that state. And if 

 there could still be any doubt as to the skeletons being 

 contemporaneous with the antiquities, it must yield to the 

 fact that several of the skulls have been exposed to a 

 similarly violent and inexplicable ill-treatment as the vast 

 majority of the other objects deposited.' The bones 

 were examined by Professor Steenstrap, the Director of 



