ornaments are not only introduced into trinkets, as in the bracteate here figured, but into most other works of the same period, for instance in the handles of swords, (see the figure p. 49); and even on the Runic stones, where the inscription is frequently inclosed within ornaments of this nature.
As they not unfrequently terminate in a rude representation of the head of some fantastic animal, these symmetrical winding ornaments have been regarded as the figures of snakes, whence they are called snake ornaments. It must however be observed, that these embellishments are copied from an ancient Roman taste; and that the fanciful heads of animals chiefly occupy the place of what were originally leaves, and that from the very first no attempt was made to give an exact representation of any particular animal. For this reason we cannot maintain that a dragon is figured on the cup here depicted, or name the embellishments snake ornaments; they are merely symmetrical turns and arabesques, with the usual fantastic heads of animals.
The cup here mentioned is of silver, and about an inch and three quarters high; it was taken from the grave of the celebrated Queen Thyre Danebod, at Jellinge; we therefore know decidedly that it dates from the tenth century. The reverse of the great Runic stone at Jellinge, which in the same century King Harald Blaatand erected in honour of his parents Gorm and Thyre, is adorned with similar ornaments; and it is a fact which is confirmed by many examples, that symmetrical windings and arabesques continued in the North long after the introduction of Christianity.
Although the arts during the iron-period were chiefly confined to the imitation of the trinkets and valuables of other countries, yet in this respect they probably attained no mean degree of excellence. It is at the same time very pos-
