Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T08:50:19.479Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Fire-dogs Again

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Stuart Piggot
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In Antiquity for 1942 (1) Iorwerth Peate made a stimulating contribution to our understanding of the iron fire-dogs which are such a striking feature of British Iron Age craftsmanship, and in these notes that follow I hope to show that Mr Peate’s thesis can be further substantiated by additional evidence from archaeology and modern folk-life. It is his central idea that I have followed: my paper is a postscript to his.

Type
Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 22 , Issue 85 , March 1948 , pp. 21 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1948

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 I. C. Peate, ‘The Double-ended Fire-dog’, ANTIQUITY XVI (1942), 64-70.

2 R. E. M. Wheeler, Report on the Excavations . . . in Lydney Park (Soc. Ant. Research Committee Report, 1932), 75; C. Fox, Ant., Journ., XIX (1939), 448.

3 R. A. Smith, ‘On Late-Celtic Antiquities discovered at Welwyn, Herts’, Arch. 1-30. LXIII (1912).

4 H. Dryden, ‘Roman and Romano-British Remains at and near Shefford, Beds’, Cambs. Ant. Soc. Pubs. 1845, 17; the fire-dogs and tripod ‘would have supported four spits and six boiling-pots’ but only two spits and no pots were actually found.

5 P. Jacobsthal, Early Celtic Art (1944),106, 142.

6 De Situ Orbis III ; cf. T. D. Kendrick, The Druids (1927), 87.

7 G. Arwidsson, Vulsgärde 6 (Uppsala 1942), 77, PI. 32, fig. 59.

8 ‘The Välsgarde beasts’ heads are not knobbed in the usual ‘Celtic’ manner, though knobbed horns on helmets at least are known in the Scandinavian Bronze Age (Cf. H. Norling-Christensen, Bronzealderhjaelmene fra Vikso (Copenhagen, 1946).

9 Bodleian MS Douce 6, reproduced by D. Hartley, Mediaeval Costume and Life (1931), p. 112.

10 Arch. Aeliana VI, 14 ; Cat. Alnwick Castle Mus., 203.

11 A convenient 15th century illustration is reproduced in D. Hartley and M. Elliot, Life and Work of the People of England; XV Century (1925, Pl. 30, a.

12 R. Meringer, ‘Studien zur Germanischen Volkskunde’, Mitt. Anthrop. Gesell. in Wien XXI (1891), 101-52 ; XXII (1892), 101-6; XXV (1895), 56-68 ; J. R. Bünker, ‘Das Bauernhaus in der Heanzerei (Westungarn)’, ibid, 89-154; G. Bancalari, ‘Forchungen u. Studien über das Haus’, ibid, XXVI (1896), 93-128. For Hungarian fire-dogs see also Debreceni Déri Múzeum Eukönyve 1934 (Debrecen Museum Year Book) p. 206, figs. 19, 20.

13 Bancalari, loc. cit., fig. 149.

14 Archiv. f. Anthropologie NS V (1906), Corres. 128; Reallexikon 11, 126, Pl. 66.

15 In G. Buschan’s Illustrierte Völkerkunde, III (Stuttgart 1926), 457-460.

16 C. Fox, A Find of the Early Iron Age from Llyn Cerrig Bach, Anglesey (1947), 12.