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piece. Of such shields, or as the Anglo-Saxons called them, bord or board, our English museums can only show the iron bosses and the fragments of iron rims recovered from graves; but one, apparently of oak, a fairly complete specimen found in Blair Drummond Moss, is now preserved in the National Museum of Antiquities at Edinburgh. Of this we give an illustration (Fig. 3). We are, however, fairly familiar with the variations of their form from the MSS. that exist. In their manufacture the foundation was usually of linden or lime-tree wood; in the poem of Beowulf, Wiglaf seizes his shield of "the yellow linden." They were for the most part circular; the boss forming the centre. In the illustrations they are generally shown concave, so as to cover the breast and shoulder well. The convex surface turned towards the enemy, to turn the blow of a sword or the thrust of a spear. The wooden foundation was so made as to leave an aperture for the hand in the centre, and over this came the boss guarding the hand. Indeed, their method of grip was exactly the same as the circular bucklers of the early years of the XVIth century. Stretched over the wood and under the boss and rim and bands was the hide of bear, wolf or deer, fur outwards; by the law of Æthelstan, and doubtless by the more ancient laws of tribal lore, it was forbidden to use the skin of the mild sheep for covering a war-shield.

Fig. 3. Remains of a wooden shield

Found in Blair Drummond Moss

Even in the days of peace the Anglo-Saxon carried a spear as his descendants carry a walking stick; in war his common arms were spear and sword. The spear in contemporary drawings is crudely represented by a thin straight line with a leaf-shaped or barbed head; we know that in reality the hafts were of medium thickness, the length varying according to the requirements of the wielder. Very many spear-heads of Saxon times have been handed down to us; in most cases they are simply constructed of iron, fashioned to the outline of a short sword blade, for the greater part of the length of which the sharpened edges are almost parallel, although gradually tapering at the extreme end. In nearly every example the haft socket is forged in the manner of all later lances and spears, though not completely encircling the shaft, in fact split as in the illustration (Fig. 4, a, b, c). (Fig. 4, d), is a javelin head, light but very strong; in this case the haft socket