A HISTORY OF NORFOLK are not given, but the buckler here seems to have lain on the face of the warrior, while the spear was placed at the side ; and each body had been wrapped in a woollen cloak fastened at the breast. Nothing could be preserved of the shields but the boss of one of them, which had been penetrated by a spear. Some beads lay on what was thought to be the skeleton of a woman ; and in another mound was the skeleton of a horse and a large quantity of diminutive bones. Such discoveries are not un- common in graves of this period in England and on the continent, and at least point to the closest of ties between the horse and his rider. Whatever the feeling that gave rise to the practice, whether to provide the fallen warrior with a means of transport beyond the grave, or to pro- pitiate the goddess of the unseen world by a splendid sacrifice, it seems clear that the interments were intentionally side by side ; and it should not surprise us to find so valuable an animal slaughtered at his master's grave in a region of dry and open heaths where horse-breeding has from the earliest times been conducted on a large scale.* Among the antiquities from Sporle is one of a pair of bronze shanks which had evidently been joined like those figured by Roach Smith from Searby, Lines.* This was found some time before 1847 in a grave- mound which was of large size and contained several skeletons. By the side of one of them (conjectured from the presence of beads and absence of weapons to be that of a female) lay these objects, and under them an iron buckle which seems to have been attached to something that had the appearance of a girdle, on which is impressed the texture of the cloth. On this basis Roach Smith considered the question settled, and pronounced these rather mysterious objects to be pendent girdle-ornaments somewhat analogous to the modern chatelaine. He compares them with continental specimens figured on his pi. Ivi. A better engraving of the Sporle specimen is to be found in the Norwich volume of the Archaeological Institute, 1851, p. xxvi., where two views are given. In the same neighbourhood, on Cotes Common two square-headed brooches^ were discovered in a mound, resembling specimens given in Akerman's Archaologkal Index, pi. xvii. figs. 3, 4, while close by at Swaffham several brooches of various dates have come to light. Some are described* as of the Anglo-Saxon period and are perhaps sufficient evidence of unburnt interments at this site just ofi^ the Peddar's Way. A specimen belonging to a common Roman type is fully described in the Norfolk Archaology^ but that it may have been buried in an Anglian grave is rendered possible by the discovery of similar specimens in graves of this period, as at Long Wittenham and Frilford, Berks. Besides these last, another Swaffham brooch * of somewhat later date is now in the British Museum. It is bronze of circular form with roughly incised edging, the
- For example, the ' great army ' was horsed here in 866.
^ Collectanea Antiqua, vol. ii. p. 234, pi. Ivi. fig. 2. ' Called ' cruciform ' in Norwich volume of Archaohgical Institute, p. xxx.
- Journal of British Archaohgical Association, vol. ii. p. 346.
^ Vol. V. p. 356. ^ Presented by Mr. Henry Plowright in 1854.
