Frazer — On an Irish Crozier,ivith Early Metal Crook. 207 
to a primitive wooden pastoral staff. 
Joined to this is a highly ornamented 
vertical piece, and separate knop, or 
circular flat ring. These differ from 
the crook in their metal work, and 
their fabrication displays high-class 
artistic skill and elaborate interlac- 
ings. It is for these portions alone 
we can claim a distinctive Irish 
origin. 
I am indebted to T. H. Longfield, 
hEsq., r.s.A., for the accompanying 
liccurate full-sized drawings of this 
3rozier : the smaller figure represents 
front at d, which completes the 
etails of the ornamentation. The 
Thite pattern is composed of inlaid 
ibbons of silver ; the dark lines are 
1 niello; and, where the inlaying 
(as been either lost or removed, is 
iiiown by wavy lines. 
It is difficult, without further in- 
wmation, to determine more than 
ipproximately the age to which the 
•cook should be assigned ; it may be 
ivo hundred, possibly three hundred, 
ears older than the inlaid portions 
I the staff, which, from the peculiar 
;yle of its decoration, can be referred, 
ith much certainty, to the earlier 
irt of the twelfth century, for it 
splays a close resemblance, in every 
ispect, to one of the most beautiful 
: the croziers of Ireland contained 
q2 
