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IX.

COINAGE OF ELFWALD II., A.D. 806-807.

NOTWITHSTANDING Mr. Keary's assertion that no coins are known of this king,' I venture, with much deference, to hold an opposite opinion.

In my cabinet is the brass styca above engraved (which was found at York in 1842, amongst ten thousand stycas bearing the names of other personages), and for the following reasons I appropriate it to the reign of Elfwald II.:

1. No stycas before Eardulf's reign have a moneyer's

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2. The moneyer's name upon it is EADVINI, and EADVINI was a moneyer of Elfwald II.'s predecessor and successor respectively.

3. The letter R. (EX) follows the king's name, as on the styca of Eanred, Ethelred, &c.

The late Mr. Lindsay had a styca 2 (now lost) with the

1A Catalogue of English Coins in the British Museum, 1887, p. 143.

2 Coins of the Heptarchy, Pl. I., No. 31.

same legend as mine, although the arrangement of the letters was slightly different; and I think, had these two stycas been issued during the reign of the first Elfwald, a rude animal, or some grotesque ornament, would not improbably have occupied the reverses in lieu of a moneyer's

name.

I do not see any necessity for assigning any stycas to Elfwald I., or any sceattas to Elfwald II., until more cogent evidence presents itself.

NATHAN HEYWOOD.

X.

DR. HILDEBRAND ON THE EARLIEST SCANDINAVIAN COINAGE.

DR. HANS HILDEBRAND, the well-known antiquary and keeper of the Antiquarian Museum in Stockholm, has recently published, in the Journal of the Royal Historical and Antiquarian Academy, a paper on the earliest Scandinavian money (Nordens äldsta mynt), which will, I think, be of considerable interest for the readers of the Numismatic Chronicle. I will therefore give a short abstract of that paper, which, through the kindness of Dr. Hildebrand in procuring clichés of his illustrations for the use of the Numismatic Chronicle, we shall be able the better to explain by illustrations. Some points not touched upon in the article Dr. Hildebrand has added in a private letter to the present writer.

I. Dr. Hildebrand's paper is, in effect, divided into two parts. In the first he discusses the attribution of certain coins hitherto generally considered as the earliest money actually struck in Scandinavia. These pieces are all published in the first page of Schive's important Norges mynter i middelalderen, and Dr. Hildebrand makes some corrections to Schive's attributions. In the second part he publishes a number of pieces which have lately been discovered at Björkö, in Sweden. In this short résumé, I propose to reverse the order of treatment, to speak first of the Björkö

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pieces, which I think Dr. Hildebrand conclusively shows are earlier than the coins published by Schive, and to turn to these last when we have dismissed the Björkö coins.

Björkö is an island in Lake Mälar, a little to the east of the mouth of the Gripsholmsvik in that lake, and it is now generally accepted as identical with the ancient Birca. The ancient and the modern names are the same in meaning, both signifying "birch-island;" and the discovery of numerous antiquarian remains in Björkö has further tended to its identification. The localisation of Birca upon the Upsala branch of Lake Mälar, though it appears in Von Spruner's Atlas, must be abandoned. Birca was the first place at which the first missionary to Sweden, St. Anscar, made any stay. It will be remembered by those who have read the life of this saint how, on his first voyage to Sweden, the vessel which bore Anscar and his brother missionary Witmar was attacked by pirates (Vikings), and how they and the crew only saved themselves by leaping overboard and swimming to the shore. Thence the missionaries wandered across country on foot until (apparently) they came to Lake Mälar and to the harbour of Björkö, where King Björn received them favourably, and they were allowed to build a church on Björkö, the first Christian church erected in Sweden. This was in A.D. 830-1. Some ten years later the Swedes rose against the missionaries, and Anscar's successor, Gauzbert, the bishop of the church in Sweden,' was driven from the country. For seven years Birca remained without any Christian missionary, until Anscar dispatched Andgar to continue the work of his predecessor. This work, how

There were now two Christian churches, one at Birca, another at Sigtuna, the capital of Björn's kingdom.

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