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 A HISTORY OF LONDON to the Scandinavians is shown by the discovery of a specimen at Asia, Ringsaker, Hedemarken, on the eastern frontier of Norway." Roach Smith illustrates, in his Catalogue of London Antiquities (No. 552), a socketed spearhead of a kind rarely met with in this country,"^ and better known in Scandinavia. The socket is inlaid with a scroll pattern in silver(?) which differs from those found at Burradon, Northumberland, and at Steyn- ing, Sussex, but doubtless belongs to the period of the Viking invasion. Another link with Scandinavia is furnished by a long and slender spear- head in the national collection, from the Thames (fig. 5). It has the socket inlaid with silver and copper in fifty-four bands of herring-bone pattern, and closely resembles one from prov. Bratsberg, Norway,"'' which, however, has also broader bands at intervals. In length it compares well with those first mentioned, and all evidently belong to the same Viking period. Before passing to the swords we may notice another weapon of offence unusually common in London before the Norman Conquest, but scarce in other parts of this country. It is generally known as the ' scramasax,' a peculiar form of the ' seax ' or knife mentioned in the story of Hengist's massacre of Vortigern's nobles. London specimens of the scramasax are of various dimensions and show minor differences in outline, but nearly all have well-defined grooves on both Fig. 5. — Iron Spearhead ima:d with Silver and Copper, Thames (^) Fig. 6. — Iron Knife inlaid with Coi-PER, Honey Lane Market (tang bent) (J) faces running near, and parallel to, the thick back of the blade, from the guard to the angle where the back begins to taper towards the point. These grooves were sometimes ornamented with an inlay of brass or other metal contrasting in colour with the polished blade. A good example (fig. 6), found with coins of iEthelred II (978-1016) on. the site of the old City of London School, Honey Lane Market,^^ has plaited brass wires so inlaid, like another London specimen from the Thames, now in the British Museum. The solidity of the weapons must have tended to reduce their length in comparison with the double-edged sword ; but there are London specimens in the Roach Smith collection that must have been difficult to balance. One has a length of over 27 in. including the tang : another,^^ imperfect at that end, is 33 J in. long ; and a third, measuring with the tang 28 J in., is remarkable in yet another respect, as it bears on one face the Runic alphabet " Gustafson, Norges Oldtid, fig. 412 ; Rygh, Norske Oldiager, fig. 518. "' JItmkk Castle Mus. Cat. 72 ; Sussex Arch. Coll. ii, 269 ; S. Muller, Ordning aj Danmarks OUsager, fig. 582 ; Rvgh, Norske OUsager, figs. S'iza, b. Several in Aspelin's Ant'iq. du Nord Finno-Ougrien. "*' Rygh, Norske Oldsager, figs. 532.?, b (Bratsberg, south of Christiania). " Roach Smith, Cat. No. 541 ; Coll. Antiq. ii, pi. Iviii, fig. 3 ; Gent. Mag. 1836, i, 371 ; Gent. Mag. Library, Romano-British Remains, i, 195. " Coll. Antiq. ii, 245. 152