Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 6.djvu/292

 172 SINGULAK SCULPTUKEI) CHESS-PIECE. an early type of the form of one of these royal pieces in the ^•ame of chess. The projection probably may have been reduced in size ; it appears to have suffered some mutilation, as, also, the under side of the piece has been hollowed out, to adapt it possibly for some other use. It is, therefore, now imprac- ticable to discern whether its original form presented the " tete aplatie " of the king, or the " tete en pointe " of his consort. It may be added, that amongst the pieces discovered by the Rev. John Wilson, at Woodpcrry, Oxfordshire, which we hope hereafter to lay before our readers,^ one occurs with a projection at top, presenting a certain analogy in fashion ; but the piece is round and the projection is broad and strongly marked on one side, gradually decreasing as it traverses the head of the piece, and wholly lost at the other side. In regard to the ornaments sculptured on the Kirkstall relic, it must be oljserved that they present many features of analogy with the sculpture of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and may perhaps l)e safely attributed to the latter period, a century later than the supposed introduction of the game of chess by Canute. The zig-zag border around the base, with a triangular foliation in each compartment, — the beaded border surrounding the upper edge, — the square eight-foiled ornaments, — the leopard and the winged monster, dragon, or wyvern, with foliated tails, here represented in fierce conflict, are all seen on the pieces found in Lewis. They occur likewise on numerous sculptures of larger dimension, of the period adverted to, as also in illuminations. On the upper face of the piece appears the leopard-lion, and fishes with a human head, probaljly the fabulous siren of the north, the wasser-nix, or nacken of Denmark, the nykyr of our own country, a myth still dimly to be traced in the turbulent "eager" of the river Ouse and the Nene, or the "liigre" of the Avon. Of the import and origin, however, of these devices, as also of the sino;ular figures of a man and woman mounted pillion- wise upon a goat, the former wielding an object which might remind us of the hammer of Thor, no satisfactory explanation has at present been ofiered, and the subject must be left for the further consideration of archaeologists better versed in the fables of northern mythology, or the singular types of mediaeval ornament. ALBERT WAY. Sec one of tlicsc, a bisliop, Ai'(li;u'l. .rdiiiiKil, vol. iii., p. I'Jl.