40 DISCOVERY OF A GOLD CUP IN CORNWALL. 



it is supposed that the native gold was the metal with which the 

 primitive inhabitants were first acquainted, and a greater number 

 and variety of objects of gold have there been found than in any 

 other country in North Western Europe. These likewise consist, for 

 the most part, of articles connected with personal decoration, 

 and it is remarkable that they have rarely occurred, as in other 

 countries, with sepulchral deposits. Ancient Annals "' give us 

 even the name of the artificer by whom gold was first smelted in 

 the woods of Wicklow, three centuries before the Christian era, 

 and affirm that by him were goblets and brooches first covered 

 with gold and silver in Ireland. Banqueting vessels of the 

 precious metals, as Sir W. Wilde states, on the authority of the 

 Annals, were not unknown to the early Irish; he points out, 

 moreover, that some golden cup-shaped vessels in the Copenhagen 

 Museum, which have been found suspended in tombs, strikingly 

 resemble, when viewed in an inverted position, certain Irish reHcs 

 of the same precious material and workmanship, noticed by 

 Vallancey and other writers as regal caps or helmets.t 



The fashion of the golden petasus — like a helm or cap with re- 

 curved brim and conical apex, seems little adapted, it must be 

 admitted, to any use as a " banqueting vessel " ; the style of 

 decoration is doubtless that with which we are familiar alike in 

 early Scandinavian relics, and likewise in those of the sister 

 Island. Gold cups of thin metal, ornamented with ribs and 

 parallel lines, rows of small knots and concentric circles, that seem 

 to be for the most part hammered up, are not infrequently found 

 in Denmark and other northern coimtries ; these vessels, although 

 in their general form dissimilar to the cup found in Cornwall, 

 present the same peculiarity of being round-bottomed. In some 

 examples also the addition of a handle occurs, of a diff'erent 

 fashion, however, to that of the Cornish treasure-trove. :|: A speci- 



* See the curious tradition preserved in the Book of Leinster, given by 

 Dr. Todd, ibid., p. 7. 



f Compare especially Worsaae, in the Nordiske Oldsager, pi. 61, fig. 280. 

 The Irish " crown," in form precisely similar to the "billlcock" hat of our 

 own times, is figured in the Introduction to Keating's History of Ireland ; 

 and Wilde's Catal. R. I. A., Antiqu. of Gold, p. 8. 



+ See the late Lord EUesmere's Translation of the Guide to Northern 

 ArchcEology, p. 44, and various treatises on Scandinavian Antiquities. Dr. 

 Wilson also refers to gold vessels found in Denmark ; Prehistoric Annals of 

 Scotland, vol. i, p. 406, second edit. 



