The knife or dagger was also a Saxon weapon. There is a picture in the Anglo-Saxon MS. in the Paris Library, called the Duke de Berri's Psalter, in which a combatant is armed with what appears to be a large double-edged knife and a shield, and actual examples of it occur in Saxon graves. The _seax_, which is popularly believed to have been a dagger and a characteristic Saxon weapon, seems to have been a short single-edged slightly curved weapon, and is rarely found in England. It is mentioned in Beowulf:--he-- "drew his deadly seax, bitter and battle sharp, that he on his byrnie bore." The sword was usually about three feet long, two-edged and heavy in the blade. Sometimes, especially in earlier examples, it is without a guard. Its hilt was sometimes of the ivory of the walrus, occasionally of gold, the blade was sometimes inlaid with gold ornaments and runic verses. Thus in Beowulf-- "So was on the surface of the bright gold with runic letters rightly marked, set and said, for whom that sword, costliest of irons, was first made, with twisted hilt and serpent shaped." The Saxons indulged in many romantic fancies about their swords. Some swordsmiths chanted magical verses as they welded them, and tempered them with mystical ingredients. Beowulf's sword was a-- "tempered falchion that had before been one of the old treasures; its edge was iron tainted with poisonous things hardened with warrior blood; never had it deceived any man of those who brandished it with hands." Favourite swords had names given them, and were handed down from father to son, or passed from champion to champion, and became famous. Thus, again, in Beowulf, we read-- "He could not then refrain, but grasped his shield, the yellow linden, drew his ancient sword that among men was a relic of Eanmund, Ohthere's son, of whom in conflict was, when a friendless exile, Weohstan the slayer with falchions edges, and from his kinsmen bore away the brown-hued helm, the ringed byrnie, the old Eotenish[369] sword which him Onela had given." There is a fine and very perfect example of a Saxon sword in the British Museum, which was found in the bed of the river Witham, at Lincoln. The sheath was usually of wood, covered with leather, and tipped, and sometimes otherwise ornamented with metal. The spear was used javelin-wise, and the warrior going into battle sometimes carried several of them. They are long-bladed, often barbed, as represented in the woodcut on p. 316, and very generally have one or two little cross-bars below the head, as in cuts on pp. 313 and 314. The Saxon artillery, besides the javelin, was the bow and arrows. The bow is usually a small one, of the old classical shape, not the long bow for which the English yeomen afterwards became so famous, and which seems to have been introduced by the Normans.