One of the first things that strikes the student in turning over the illuminated manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxons, and comparing their pictures with the relics procured from the graves, is the great frequency in the paintings of the barbed spear or _angon_, and its extreme rarity in real examples. We have already seen, in the description of Agathias, that this weapon was employed with fearful effect by the Franks in the seventh century; and the constant occurrence of it in the vellum-paintings of a later date, leaves us no room to doubt that it was a familiar form to our Teutonic ancestors. Yet its occurrence in the graves is of the greatest rarity. We have given, in our plate of spears, figure 17, a specimen of the barbed javelin, forming part of the Faussett Collection, found in 1772 in a grave on Sibbertswould Down, in Kent. Its length is eleven inches. Figure 23 in the same plate is from Mr. Wylie's paper in the Archæologia, (vol. XXXV.); the original, of iron, and in length sixteen inches, was found in a Norwegian tumulus. Mr. Wylie has also engraved another example, preserved in the _Musée de l'Artillerie_ at Paris, said to have been procured from a Merovingian grave. In the Abbé Cochet's work (Plate XVI.) is figured another specimen, from a grave at Envermeu, the length of which is five inches; the barbs spreading out widely on each side, exactly in the manner of the royal "broad-arrow." Several examples are given in Worsaae's Copenhagen Museum, p. 69; one of which differs from the rest in having the barb on one side only, the other side being leaf-shaped. The barbed spear or javelin has also been found at Mainz, Darmstadt, and Wiesbaden[47]; but in all cases it occurs in very small proportion to the other weapons discovered.
The four-edged spear-head is of still greater rarity. In the graves opened by Mr. Wylie at Fairford, in Gloucestershire, one of these curious weapons was obtained; which we have copied from the volume describing this find[48], in our plate of spears, fig. 18. It is of iron, sixteen and a half inches in length, and two inches across at the broadest part. "It reminds one," remarks Mr. Wylie, "of the spear of Thorolf in Eigil's Saga:" "Cujus ferrum duas ulnas longum, in mucronem _quatuor acies habentem_, desinebat." These four-edged weapons are of the highest antiquity;--compare those of the Egyptians, figured and described in Sir Gardner Wilkinson's work[49].