No similar hoard has been discovered in any other part of Scotland. But in its general composition the Skaill hoard resembles a considerable number of other hoards of similar articles which have been found in other countries. They are most abundant in the eastern parts of Sweden, less common in Norway, and of occasional occurrence in Denmark. In none of these countries has there been found a hoard consisting of such a large number of personal ornaments as that found at Skaill, but the forms and the character of the ornaments found in these hoards of silver, associated with mintages of the ninth and tenth centuries, are always the same. The specialty of these hoards so found in Scandinavia is that they are largely composed of Cufic and Anglo-Saxon coins.[48] The personal ornaments associated with them consist for the most part of large rings for the neck, formed of intertwisted rods and wires; arm rings of similar character, or of solid bars, circular or quadrangular in section, bent into a penannular oval, and ornamented with the peculiar triangular patterns impressed by a punch, with dots in the field. The brooches, with long pins and bulbous ends like thistle heads, are less common, but occur occasionally in such hoards in all the three Scandinavian countries. In many of the hoards there are also ingots, and dismembered ornaments cut and hammered into lumps of mere bullion. “This fact,” says Hildebrand, “shows that they had no value with the people who possessed them, except the intrinsic value of the metal.” Weighing scales and weights are sometimes also found with them, and close examination reveals the fact that the ornaments and portions of ornaments have been often tested with a cutting instrument to try their purity. This again reveals the trafficker rather than the plundering Viking, who carries off his spoil without any such careful examination; and, according to this view, Mr. Hildebrand concludes that the silver ornaments and the Cufic coins must be considered as equally foreign to Scandinavia. “There can be no doubt,” he says, “that these ornaments, ingots, and lumps of silver were brought with the coins from Asia, where silver is more easily obtained than in the northern parts of Europe.” With reference to this conclusion it may be remarked that while the derivation of the Cufic coins needs no demonstration, and while it may be admitted that other products of the Arab civilisation of the time were brought by the same stream of commerce through Russia to the Scandinavian countries, and thence to Scotland, England, and Ireland, it still remains to be shown that these silver ornaments are Oriental in their origin. This can only be demonstrated by showing that they are allied by their forms and ornament to the Oriental types of that period; or, if this cannot be done, it must at least be shown that they differ so widely in form and ornament from the types of the western lands in