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Fig. 57.—Wooden Rapier-Blade

(Dublin Museum).

Fig. 56.—Irish Sword.

The wooden Sword extended deep into the Age of Metal. Articles of the kind have been brought from New Zealand, which are evident copies of modern European weapons. Wilde (p. 452) gives the wooden Sword, found five feet deep in Ballykilmunary near High Park, county Wicklow, with some bog-butter, but he finds no indications of its age. The length is twenty inches (fig. 56). Upon the side of the blade, and of a piece with it, stands a projection whose purpose is unknown: it is evidently inconvenient for a toy; but if the relic be a model for a sand-mould, the excrescence would have left an aperture by which to pour in the metal. This view is supported by the shape of the handle, which resembles the grips of the single-piece bronze Swords found in different parts of Europe. The Dublin Museum also contains[135] a blade apparently intended for thrusting, and labelled ‘Wooden Sword-shaped Object.’ The material is oak, blackened by burial in bog-earth: it has a mid-rib, a bevelled point, and no appearance of being a model (fig. 57).