with stars and crosses. Two circular enamels were also there, adorned with that interlacing pattern found in the earliest Anglo-Saxon or Irish MSS. of the sixth or seventh centuries, or it may be a little earlier; a helmet also was found, formed of iron bars, with
35. Fragment of Drinking Cup from Benty Grange. |
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36. Fragment of Helmet from Benty Grange. |
bronze and silver ornaments, and surmounted by what Mr. Bateman assures us was a perfectly distinct representation of a hog. He then quotes from Beowulf several passages, in which the poet describes: "The boar an ornament to the head, the helmet lofty in wars" (1. 4299). . . . "They seemed a boar's form to bear over their cheeks" (1. 604). . . ." At the pile was easy to be seen, the mail-shirt covered with gore, the hog of gold, the boar hard as iron" (1. 2213). As Beowulf lived, as shown above, probably in the fifth century, the poem may be taken as describing perfectly the costume of the warriors of his day; and nothing could answer more completely his description than the contents of this tomb.
In Kenslow Barrow, between Minning Low and Arbor Low, were found a few implements of flint and bone; but on clearing out the grave in the rock, which had been examined before in 1821, Mr. S. Bateman found some portions of the skeleton undisturbed, and with them a small neat bronze dagger, and a little above these
