specimen is represented by a thin embossed strip at Aylesford, while the classical motives are woefully caricatured. Minor analogies are noticed later, but the degradation of the ornament may fitly be dwelt on here as showing the limitations, and at the same time the originality of the native craftsman." [Illustration: FIG. 269.--Bronze-mounted bucket, Aylesford. From _A Guide to Antiquities of the Early Iron Age_ (B.M.).] [Illustration: FIG. 270.--Embossed frieze of bucket, Aylesford. From _A Guide to Antiquities of the Early Iron Age_ (B.M.).] I confess myself unable either to appreciate or dwell upon the alleged degradation of this design, or the woeful inadequacy of the craftmanship. The bold execution of the spirals proves that the British artist--had such been his intent--could without difficulty have delineated a copybook horse: what, however, he was seemingly aiming at was a facsimile of the heraldic and symbolic beasts which our coins prove were the cherished insignia of the country, and these "deplorable abortions" I am persuaded were no more barbarous or unsuccessful than the grotesque lions and other fantastics which figure in the Royal Arms to-day. In all probability the Aylesford bucket was made in the neighbourhood where it was found, for at Aylesford used to stand a celebrated "White Horse Stone". The attendant local legend--that anyone who rode a beast of this description was killed on or about the spot[539]--is seemingly a folk-memory of the time when the severe penalty for riding a white mare was death.[540] The place-name Aylesbury is derived by the authorities from _bury_, a fortified place of, and _Aegil_, the Sun-archer of Teutonic mythology: the head-dress of the face constituting the hinge of the Aylesford bucket consists of two circles which correspond in idea with the two children in the arms of the Etruscan hinge. That the bucket was originally a sacerdotal and sacred vessel is implied not only by the word but by the ancient custom thus recorded: "First on a pillar was placed a perch on the sharp prickled back whereof stood this idol ... in his left hand he held up a wheel, and in his right he carried a pail of water wherein were flowers and fruits".[541] I have elsewhere reproduced several emblems of Jupiter and Athene each seated on a "sharp prickled back," _i.e._, a _broccus_, saw, or zigzag, symbolic of the shaggy solar rays. [Illustration: FIGS. 271 to 273.--British. From Akerman.]