CHAPTER XVIII. DRESS OF WOMEN. The gown—Festive dress—Outer garments—Under garments—Head-dress—Mode of wearing the hair—Ornaments—Buckles and fibulæ—Numerous jewels of gold. The most important piece of clothing worn by women was the _kyrtil_ (gown). It was made very wide, with a train, and was usually provided with long sleeves reaching to the wrists. It was fastened round the waist by a belt, often made of gold or silver, from which a bag was suspended for rings, ornaments, housewife’s keys, &c. Sometimes this dress was narrow at the waist, and had a close-fitting jacket. Over the kirtle was wore a kind of apron (_blœja_), which sometimes had fringe at the bottom. The _slœdur_, mentioned in Rigsmál, was a festive dress for women as well as for men; it did not reach so high as to entirely cover the neck and bust; therefore a separate piece of clothing, called _smokk_ (collar), was worn with it, and a _dúk_ (neckerchief) was also wrapped round the neck. The neck and bust were frequently left bare, and ornamented with a necklace and other ornaments. A kind of shoulder ornament is also mentioned, under the name of _dvergar_. And the housewife Looked at her sleeves, She smoothed the linen, And plaited them, She put up the head-dress; A brooch was on her breast, The dress-train was trailing, The shirt had a blue tint; Her brow was brighter, Her breast was more shining, Her neck was whiter Than pure new fallen snow. (Rigsmál, 28, 29.) “Gisli could not sleep, and said he wanted to go from the house to his hiding place, south of the cliffs, and try if he could not sleep there. They all went there (Gisli, his wife Aud, and her foster-daughter Gudrid); they (the women) had on kirtles, which left a track in the dew” (Gisli Sursson’s Saga, p. 67). From the four representations here given, we get an idea of the dress of women, and the peculiar manner in which they arranged their hair. The long trailing dress reminds us of the descriptions in the Sagas. Three of the figures are presenting drinking-horns to some persons unseen. On the Hallingbrö stone[220] a woman, dressed in a somewhat similar way, is presenting a drinking-horn to a warrior on horseback. [Illustration: Fig. 1160.—Chain of silver. Real size. Found in the interior of a sepulchral chamber in a tumulus. Earlier iron age.—Norway. ] [Illustration: Fig. 1161.—Silver (11th century); real size. Found with Arabic, German, and old English coins.—Öland. ] [Illustration: Fig. 1162. ] [Illustration: Fig. 1163. ] [Illustration: Fig. 1164. Real size.—Sweden. ] [Illustration: Fig. 1165. ] [Illustration: