SWORD OF THE VIKING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20264, 25 May 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

SWORD OF THE VIKING.

RARE RELIG IN LONDON.

A BATTLE OF OLDEN DATS. In the year 841 A.D. the Vikings wenf to Ireland, and Thorgestr, King of tho Norsemen, fought a great battle at Clonmacnois. The truth of this may now be seen in a glass case at University College in Gower Street, London. Fierce was the battle. Many a Berserk fell, and many an Unknown Soldier. It was one of these who, as ho died, cast away his sword, and some wild Irish Kern bore it away with him from the stricken field.

A great sword it was. The pommel and the quiljon or cross-hilt were silvered and stamped with ornament, and on the hilt one may still Bee the name of the swordsmith, *Hiltp Reht*, which stands for Hiltiprecht. Hiltiprecht, the sword-maker of Bavaria, fashioned this weapon, though not for the Viking who lost it in battle. The sword was forged for one of the traders of the Eastern Frankish Empire, and was carried in some private raid to Norway. There it fell into the hands of one of those who sailed with Thorgestr to Ireland on the great raid. Into Ireland Thorgestr carried fire and sword and the gods of the Norsemen. Christians and the Christian faith were there, But Thorgestr drove out priest and monk frorn tho- monastery of Clonmacnois, and his wife Audr turned the great church of the monastery into a pagan shrine where Odin, Thor and Freya were worshipped, and Queen Audr, seated at the High Altar, gave Oracles. This is the story which the chronicles tell, and to which the sword fashioned by Hiltiprecht now stands as witness in the glass case at University College. It is one of the many remarkable things in the Exhibition of recent Archaeological Discoveries in the British Isles. \

The exhibition includes a. British Lake Dwelling, a Roman dog in bronze, a Roman curse in iron, a drawing as old as the Reindeer Men on a bit of reindeer bone, and a scoro of other testimonies that Briton and Roman, " Saxon and Norman and Dane are we."