Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/86

 lengthways on the blade. On each face is also seen a maker's mark, apparently inlaid and gilt, of a crowned M.

"On the motto side, below the inscription and mark, is a shield bearing three griffins' or wolves' heads erased.

"On the other face is a scroll with W W below it.

"The blade is set in parcel-gilt socket, which conforms to the shape of the lower part of the haft.

"The haft is of ebony 4-1/4 inches long, and consists in an eight-sided grip, swelling out above into an eight-sided half knob, which is surmounted by a silver button with leaves.

"Below, the grip divides into two shoulders in the plane of the edges of the blade. These shoulders are also ornamented with silver buttons and leaves.

"The sheath is cuir bouilli, handsomely tooled, and has on its front another small sheath for the 'bodkyn.'

"There are two loops for suspension at the side, and a third on the back. The lower end of the sheath terminates in a kind of acorn."

The very recent re-discovery of just such another dagger and sheath as the specimen just described, a dagger assuredly made by the same workman (Fig. 815, a, b), came as one of those surprises that very occasionally compensate the collector for many fruitless searches. We have used the word re-discovery advisedly; for tied up with a bunch of eastern daggers this weapon, with its sheath, had been hanging in a city dealer's shop for nearly ten years. And there it still might have remained unnoticed and unconsidered had it not caught the eye of one skilled in the knowledge of such rarities, through whose generosity it passed into our own collection. It hardly varies from the last dagger described, save that the blade bears no inscription, that the silver studs are lost from the pommel and lobes above the quillons, and that part of the locket-end of the tooled leather scabbard has been broken. On the blade is the same armourer's mark, the letter "M" crowned.

The next best example known to the writer is in His Majesty's Collection at Windsor (Fig. 816); while two good specimens are in the Keasby Collection (Figs. 817 and 818). Of these the former came from Woodbridge, Suffolk; while the latter, which was found in 1846 in the thatch of a cottage in Weldrake, Yorkshire, was formerly in the Bateman Collection. With this latter dagger is associated a leather scabbard which is of the correct type, but which, as a matter of fact, was found while excavations were being made in Worship Street, London. Another dagger of the type, a small example to be seen in the Salting Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum,