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Oxford, horns, which, with others extant, will be briefly

alluded to anon.

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The story of the Ulphic Horn is as follows. Ulphus, "the son of Thorald", was an influential thegn (that is, servant") of the King,1 of Danish origin, who ruled as a Consul, with the title of Earl ("Consul et insignis Comes"), over the western part of Deira, a division of the kingdom of Northumberland, bounded on the north by the Tyne, and on the south by the Humber. This Prince, of whom little or nothing else is known, was, however, not without honour in his father Thorald's adopted country; for the dignity of "Eorle" which he enjoyed (and it was at this time that the Danish title of Earl was first generally used) was of the same rank with that of Archbishop. This appears in the laws of Athelstane, where the head of a prelate with the latter title is set at equal value to that of an earl, namely 15,000 thrimsæ, whereas the value of a bishop's or an ealderman's head was set at 8,000 thrimsæ.

1 The growth of the kingly power appears to have increased the importance of the dignity of thegnhood until it probably resembled that of satrapy under the ancient Persian monarchy. Before this growth took place the thegn, or "servant", was the "gesid", or companion of the king. These "gesidas", or followers, were personally attached to their king and to each other by the strongest tie of mutual trust. See Freeman's Hist. of the Conquest, vol. i, p. 91; see also The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the status of thegn and corle.

2 Cod. MSS. Cotton, Cleopatra, No. 11, cap. iv, p. 16.

3 Deira, like Kent and some other districts of Britain, seems to have retained a British name both for the land and its inhabitants long after it had been conquered by the Teutonic tribes, but became politically extinct at the Conquest. (Lee and Pulling's Dict. of Eng. Hist., and Green's Conquest of Eng., where much further information may be obtained.) It may be taken for what it is worth, in conjunction with the supposed Oriental origin of the Celtic races and of the Celtic language, that Deira is of frequent occurrence in the nomenclature of the East. There are in Khuzistan, Persia, a town, a river, and a plain of that name. The remarkable conformity between the religion of the ancient Druids and the ancient Persians is pointed out by Dr. Borlase in his Antiquities of Cornwall, ed. 1769, p. 144 et seq.

* General Introduction to Tyrrell's History of England. The position of an ealderman under the Anglo-Saxon régime carried the same weight with that of an "eorle" under the Danish. A "thrimsa" was a silver coin of the value of three pence or four pence, or by some considered of the value of a shilling.

5 "Vox enim Earle non Saxonica, sed Danica est." (Vita Ælfredi Magni, Spelman, lib. ii, note aа, р. 81.)

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This Ulphus had an altercation with his two sons, Archil and Norman, who had quarrelled about the future allotment of their father's estates, and the dispute gave such high offence to the Prince that he straightway enfeoffed the Cathedral with all his lands and revenues. This is Camden's assertion, but its accuracy is disputed by Mr. Robert Davies in volume xxvi of the Archæological Journal, who there states that "Ulphus neither impoverished himself nor disinherited his sons"; and both Mr. Davies and Mr. Brooke, Somerset Herald, in vol. vi of Archæologia, endeavour to show that Camden errs in his statement with regard to Ulphus' gift consisting of all his lands ("omnes terras"); that, in point of fact, Ulphus was in possession of large estates after his gift to the Church, and that his sons also held estates in the district in the time of Edward the Confessor. The most reasonable explanation offered seems to be that of Mr. Brooke, who remarks that Ulphus probably gave all he had power to give; for there might be settlements which prevented his alienating the whole of his estate from his family, especially to a religious house.

To confirm this investiture Ulphus gave to the Church, as a pledge of his good faith, an important and valuable personal requisite in the form of his own drinking-horn of carved ivory, from which he had previously drunk

1 ......" et propter altercationem filiorum suorum senioris et junioris super dominiis post mortem mox omnes fecit æque pares. Nam in dilato Eboracum divertit et cornu quo bibere consuevit vino replevit et coram altari Deo et beato Petro Apostolorum principi omnes terras et redditus flexis genibus propinavit." (Camden, Brit. (Lond., 1600, 4to.), p. 629.)

2 "Saxon Inscriptions in Aldborough Church", vol. vi, Archæologia. 3 Evidence of the costliness of such a luxury as ivory at this period, and consequently of the importance of the gift, is afforded in the wide, even universal use, as a substitute for it, of the fine-grained tusk of the walrus, of which such objects as draughtsmen, or tablemen, and chessmen, were made in the Middle Ages, the comparative lack of communication with the East rendering it difficult to obtain the more precious substance. "Huel-bone", or whale-bone, is employed by the early English poets as a simile for whiteness. In the first form it occurs in Weber's Metrical Romances (vol. iii, note, p. 350), and is spoken of as "whale's bone" by Shakespeare in Love's Labour's Lost, v,2.

The horn had long been invested with important symbolic meaning by the ancients. The horn filled with flowers is associated in classical art with the deities which exercised power over the natural world; and the simple drenc-horn of the early Christians in Saxon England

wine upon his knees before the altar. The olifant,1 when thus presented, was garnished with verrols of gold, and had a gold chain for suspension. It was, however, stripped of these embellishments by a goldsmith to whom it was sold in the reign of Edward VI; and it afterwards came into the possession of the Fairfax family, by whom, in the person of Henry Lord Fairfax, it was returned to the Cathedral. To this effect runs the inscription upon the restored silver-gilt verules. Upon the upper verule the words are:

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"Cornu hoc3 Ulphus in occidentali parte
Deirae princeps una cum omnibus terris
Et redditibus suis olim donavit
Amissum vel abreptum."

And upon the lower, in lapidary style,

"Henricus dom. Fairfax demum restituit
Dec. et capit. de novo ornavit.
A.D. M.DC.LXXV."

The convex measurement of the horn is 2 ft. 5 in., and

signified, in its upturned position, the duration of a festival, whilst in its reversed position it signified its expiration. See Archæologia, vol. i, a Runic almanack facing p. 168.

1 When the fashion arose of working delicately in ivory, the elephant's tusk took the name of "olifant", an appellation destined to become famous in the old romances of chivalry, in which the olifant played a very important part.

2 The rim of both the bugle-horn and of the olifant was always enriched with either silver or gold, and to the embouchure, as used for blowing purposes, was affixed a valve which converted it into a drinking utensil. When the chieftains assembled to carouse on mead or ale, each was obliged to quaff its contents off at a draught, and opening the valve, to blow in it after, that the company might be satisfied that there was no flinching. See quotation from the British poets in note 3 to the Gododin, by Wm. Probert, p. 64; see also Cæsar, B. vi, ("Bell. Gall."), the custom of the Gauls.

3 The memory of Ulphus' gift is perpetuated over the arches of the nave and choir, where the horn was cut upon the stone when the nave and choir were rebuilt about five hundred years ago; and the ecclesiastical authorities still hold valuable estates, a few miles east of York, by virtue of this unsophisticated mode of conveyance, the validity of which is still recognised in a court of law when land is in dispute which has been transferred in accordance with such an ancient custom; e.g., the "Pusey Horn" (see Archæologia, vol. iii, p. 13). "Ancient laws were not commands issued by superiors, but merely custom sanctioned by usage, voluntarily observed with that strong devotion to usage which always characterises uncivilised nations." (Dr. Cherry's Growth of Criminal Law, 1890.)

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its concave 1 ft. 11 in., whilst the circumference of the verule at the "bell", or embrasure, is 15 in. These measurements correspond closely with those of the Danish horn of gold delineated in Wormius' Danicorum Monumentarum.1

In speaking of this very interesting horn there is one feature previously alluded to, namely the carving, which, however, deserves a consideration for which a mere allusion cannot suffice. The design of this carving exhibits a style markedly similar to that in which the animals are portrayed in procession round the body or upon the surface of Greek pottery of the archaic period, or upon the inner surface of the metal bowls from Nimroud; and upon the boss of a shield found at Amathus, in Cyprus, may be seen, amongst many other instances, this striking resemblance in respect also to the Oriental style of outline which characterises the griffins. These griffins or lions, with the wings of an eagle, have the head presumably of a wolf, and their tails also terminate in a smaller head resembling that of a wolf; so that they seem to be intended for a kind of armes parlantes, or "speaking arms", of the owner, in allusion to his name Ulf, Ulphus, or Wolf.4

1 See also Worsaae's Primæval Antiquities of Denmark, p. 63. 2 Egyptian sarcophagi, the Trajan and Antonine columns, the Bayeux Tapestry, with many other instances, might be cited in respect to the approximate universality of this design which is as marked as that of the traditions of the Noachian Deluge; and perhaps in the preservation of animal life in the interests of man, at the Deluge, may be sought the origin of the reverence paid to animals by the ancient Egyptians, as seen in the symbolism of animals in their cycle of the gods. At all events this supposition would not negatively affect the view held by Lenormant, who is of the opinion that the symbolism of animals arose through the priests having recourse to animals to symbolise the attributes, the qualities, and the nature of the various deities of their Pantheon; the inhabitants of the Nile preferring to pay their worship to living representatives of their gods rather than to lifeless images, etc. (See Manual of Ancient Hist. in the East, p. 325, and Prof. Rawlinson's Hist. of Ancient Egypt, vol. i, p. 418.) The procession into the ark must have suggested the wide-spread use of such a style of ornament as depicted on ancient monuments; and there are abundant reasons, as Mr. Lysons shows in Our British Ancestors, for supposing that the commemoration of the Deluge entered largely into the mysteries of early worship.

3 L. Palma di Cesnola's Cyprus.

4 The names of "Wolf" and "Bear" were so commonly used as per

Upon one of the archaic friezes from Xanthus is figured a lion devouring a stag, in the same manner that a lion is depicted upon the horn in the act of devouring what appears to be a fawn; a not uncommon design also upon Samian ware, and upon Roman tesselated pavements. The resemblance indicated is not surprising when one considers how greatly Scandinavian art and archæology are indebted to the East, since an active communication between Scandinavia and Asia was generally maintained by way of Northern Russia (then called Bearmiland and Garderica) up to the conclusion of the eleventh century;1 and this intercommunication doubtless assisted in diffusing the artistic knowledge, common to all Europe, of the winged lions, sphinges, and other chimeræ which decorate ancient monuments. Something approaching the palmtree itself in design is present upon the horn, as if to unite with these mythic animals in proclaiming the antiquity of the Eastern style of art thereon displayed; for one is, I submit, tempted to recognise in this tree bearing leaves a modification, however threadbare, of that most ancient cult in Oriental religious worship, the Tree of Life, -a design manifest in both Egyptian and Assyrian art.2

The laminated or scaled ornamentation, representing the manes of the animals, is also characteristic not only of Egyptian and Assyrian, but also of Greek and Roman art, having been suggested, doubtless, by the protection from hurt which nature has provided in the "greater coverts" of the wings and tails of birds; as seen, for instance, in the plumage of the vulture (the phonetic equivalent, in Egyptian hieroglyphics, of the goddess Mut), the remains of which bird surmount the sacred boat of

sonal appellations by the Danes and Saxons that we are unable to pronounce with certainty as to the significance of names like Wolferlow in Herefordshire, or Barnwood in Gloucestershire. Wolversley, a small island at Winchester, was, however, the place where the Welsh tribute of wolves' heads was annually made. (Isaac Taylor's Words and Places.)

1 See Worsaae's Primæval Antiquities of Denmark.

2 Professor Rawlinson sees in the emblem which combines the horns of the ram (an animal noted for its procreative power) with the image of a fruit or flower-producing tree, ground for supposing that some allusion is intended to the prolific or generative energy in nature. (See The Second Monarchy of the Ancient Eastern World, pp. 6-9.)

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