Occasionally the spear-head was formed with its two sides on different planes; with the object, as it would appear, of giving a rotary motion to the weapon when used as a javelin. Two examples of this construction are described and engraved in the account of the excavations, by Mr. Akerman, at Harnham Hill, near Salisbury[51]. The spear-head was generally attached to its shaft by means of rivets passing through the socket into the wood beneath. Sometimes, in lieu of the socket, there was a spike at the base of it, which was driven _into_ the wood, as in one of the Livonian examples, now in the British Museum, and figured in Dr. Bähr's work, _Die Gräber der Liven_. Sometimes, again, a ferule of bronze or iron was added to the socketed spear-head at its junction with the staff, as in the example in Mr. Rolfe's museum, at Sandwich, obtained from the Ozingell graves, and figured on our Plate II., fig. 6. In this instance the ferule was of bronze. One of iron occurred in the cemetery at Linton Heath, Cambridgeshire, (figured in Archæol. Journal, vol. xi. p. 106). In manuscript illuminations the spear-head of the Anglo-Saxons is constantly represented with one or more cross-bars at the base of the blade. A spear of iron having a cross-piece of analogous form was found among Anglo-Saxon relics near Nottingham in recent excavations, and has been added to the Tower Collection. It is engraved in the Archæological Journal, vol. viii. p. 425. Similar examples are figured in the Illustrated Catalogue of Mr. Roach Smith's Museum, p. 103. The shaft itself appears to have been generally of ash. Portions of the wood have been found at Wilbraham, at Ozingell, at Northfleet, and other places. Some of that from Northfleet, having been examined by Professor Lindley and by Mr. Girdwood, has been pronounced to be undoubtedly ash[52]. The general use of this wood is strikingly confirmed by several passages in "Beowulf," that curious Anglo-Saxon poem which the concurring opinion of the best Northern scholars has assigned to the close of the eighth century:-- "Their javelins piled together stood, The seamen's arms, of ashen wood."--_Line_ 654. And again, line 3535:-- "Thus I the Hring-danes for many a year governed under heaven and secured them with war from many tribes throughout this earth with spears and swords." (_Æscum and ecgum._) In this passage, _æscum_, ash, is put for the spear itself. Mr. Roach Smith has collected several other instances of a similar kind. "In Cædmon, the term _æsc-berend_, or spear-bearer, is applied to a soldier." In the fragment of the poetical "History of Judith" we have _æsc-plega_, the play of spears, as a poetic term for a battle. So we have _æsc-bora_, a spear-bearer; and in the Codex Exoniensis, _æsc-stede_, a field of battle. And again, in "Beowulf:"--