Notice of a remarkable bronze ornament with horns, found in Galloway, now at Abbotsford : also of a bronze ornament like a "swines head," found in Banffshire / by John Alexander Smith.

Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notice of a remarkable bronze ornament with horns, found in Galloway, now at Abbotsford : also of a bronze ornament like a "swines head," found in Banffshire / by John Alexander Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    Abbotsford l)ronze already described. It is difficult to suggest any explanation of its supposed use. It seems, however, undoubtedly to i-epresent a boar's head. Mr Charles Roach Smith, in a memoir on some Anglo-Saxon and Prankish Eemains, in the second volume of his valuable Collectanea Antiqua (London, 1852), when referring to the figure of a hog upon a Saxon helmet found near Monyash in Derbyshire,^ quotes various passages from the poem of Beowulf, which show that the helmet was probably ornamented by a figure of a boar or swine. I give two short extracts, pp. 240, 241:— eofep-Hc j-cionon They seemed a boars form opep-hleop bepan ; . to bear over their cheeks; 5e-hpoben jolbe twisted with gold pah anb pyp-heapb, variegated and hardened in the fire, Rph-peapbe heolb. this kept the guard of life. 1. 604. pec Sa in bepan * Then commanded he to bring in eapop heiiFob-j-ejn, the boar, an ornament to the head, iieapo-|-ceapne helm, the helmet lofty in war, [re] ajie-bypnan, the grey mail coat, ju'S-j-peopb jeaco-lic ; the ready battle-sword. 1.4299. He also gives the following quotation from Tacitus, De Morilius Germanorum (cap. Ixv.), to prove that the Germanic tribes, as Tacitus designates them, on the right shore of the Baltic bore, as a charm against the dangers of war, images of wild boars.— Matrem deuin venerantur : insigne superstitionis, formas aprorum gestant. Id pro armis omnique tutelar securum dese cultorem etiam inter hostes prosstat. The boar was sacred to Freya, and the bearing, or wearing, a figure of the animal, was considered to propitiate the goddess, and place tlie wearer under her special protection. The same fact is referred to in another passage of the poem of IJeowulf, also quoted by Mr C. Boach Smith ; and Mr Batemen» mentions that the custom of wearing tiie ' See Ten Years' Digging in Celtic imrl Snxon CJravo Hills. By Tlmniiis Bfitoman. &c. London. 18G]. Pp. 28-33.