"The war-byrnie shone, hard (and) hand-locked (_heard hond-locen_); the bright ring-iron sang in their trappings when they proceeded to go forward to the hall, in their terrible armour."--_Canto_ i. _line_ 640.
"Beowulf prepared himself, the warrior in his weeds, he cared not for life: the war-byrnie, twisted with hands (_hondum ge-broden_), wide and variegated with colours, was now to try the deep," &c.
In Canto xxii. we have,--"the war-dress, the locked battle-shirt." ... "On his shoulder lay the twisted breast-net (_breost-net broden_) which protected his life against point and edge." ... "his war-byrnie, his hard battle-net (_here-net hearde_)."
If there is meaning in words, surely "the _twisted_ breast-_net_," the "hard battle-_net_," the "_locked_ battle-shirt," the "byrnie _twisted_ with hands," the "war-byrnie, hard and _hand-locked_," can mean nothing but the hauberk of interlinked chain-mail; that garment which, we have so often been told, came to us at some unknown time, from some unknown people, dwelling in some unknown region of the East. If this fabric, which, for brevity, we will call chain-mail, came from the East, where are the eastern monuments that exhibit it? It is not seen in Egyptian, Assyrian, nor Indian sculptures or paintings; and the triumph-scenes of these nations represent in great diversity the numerous tribes of Asia. The same origin has been given to Cannon; but every one who has made any research in this direction knows that the Oriental derivation of this engine has not the smallest foundation in fact[105]. In the Volsunga Saga, a work of the eleventh century, we read that "Sigurd's sides so swelled with rage that the rings of his byrnie were burst asunder;" which could scarcely have happened (adds Von Leber, who notices this passage,) with a garment made of rings sewn contiguously[106]. The well-known enigma of Bishop Aldhelm, written in the eleventh century, so curiously illustrates our inquiry, that we shall be pardoned for reprinting it. It is headed "De Lorica:"--
"Roscida me genuit gelido de viscere tellus: Non sum setigero lanarum vellere facta: Licia nulla trahunt, nec garrula fila resultant: Nec croceâ seres texunt lanugine vermes: Nec radiis carpor, duro nec pectine pulsor: Et tamen, en, vestis vulgi sermone vocabor. Spicula non vereor longis exempta pharetris." _Roy. MS._, 15, A. xvi.