These were the helmet Hildegolt; the byrnie Finnsleif, which no steel could scathe; and the gold ring called Sviagris, which had belonged to Adils’ forefathers.
Helm and byrnie were not necessarily unknown, or even very rare in England, simply because it was not the custom to bury them with the dead.
And we are told in the Icelandic that Odin, whilst he gave a sword to Sigmund, gave a helm and byrnie to Hermoth.
Then he another speedily shot, That the byrnie burst; in breast was he wounded Through the ringèd mail; there stood in his heart 145 The poisonous point.
I did so, and in that lay a most beautiful byrnie and helm, if anything better than those we had been choosing from.
The mediaeval warrior has a heavy byrnie as well as a great shield suspended from his neck.
The Byrnieor Battle-Sark was at times made of leather.
The byrnie was also made of padded stuff judging from the illustrations, but the earlier examples are so excessively crude and inartistic that it is rash to make authoritative statements.
The hauberk was to the Norman what the byrnie was to the Saxon, the chief method of bodily defence.
One king is habited in a ringed byrnie which extends to the knees and half way down the arms; he wields a sword with a trilobed pommel and short quillons, and defends himself with a shield having a spiked umbo.
Well armed were all his housecarles, and this one I had slain was their captain, and his byrnie of linked mail was of the best Sussex steel, and his helm was crested with a golden boar, with linked mail tippet hanging to protect the neck.
One measured your mail, byrnie and helm both, as you slept.
The Anglo-Saxon poets let us know that chieftains and warriors wore a body defence, which they call a byrnie or a battle-sark.
In distinguishing between the eorl and the cheorl it says, if the latter thrive so well that he have a helmet and byrnie and sword ornamented with gold, yet if he have not five hydes of land, he is only a cheorl.
Wide gape the rents in byrnie and helm, And I fear that the end draws nigh; And the strength of manhood has gone from thine arm, And the light of life from thine eye.
In the horror of night-time, my little maid, Thou comest with helmet and byrnie and blade, And shakest thy graven spear!
So I made no delay, but took off my byrnie and garments.
Only my ring mail byrniethey could not take from me, as they feared to untie my arms.
But Blacktooth's byrnie was good, nor did the sword bite into it.
Thou wilt be to me as one dead, for it is Gudruda's to bind the byrnie on thy breast when thou goest forth to war, and hers to loose the winged helm from thy brow when thou returnest, battle-worn and conquering.
Through shield it sheared, and arm that held the shield, through byrnie mail and deep into Earl Atli's side.
He had but one arm, for the other was hewn from him, and the byrnie on his left side was red with blood.
To Skallagrim also he gave a good byrnie of Welsh steel coloured black.
This was a great wound, for the axe shore through the steel of the byrnie and sank into the flesh.
It entered his side through a cleft in his byrnie and pierced him deep.
Still, fear not: we shall soon meet with weapons aloft and byrnie on breast.
Then, going to the place where he was wont to sleep, he armed himself, girding his byrnie on his breast and his golden helm upon his head, and taking shield and spear in his hand.
Eric might not bear this sight, for his heart beat within him as though it would burst the byrnie over it.
Eric drew Whitefire and leaned on it, waiting for the word, and all the women held him to be wondrous fair as, clad in his byrnie and his golden helm, he leaned thus on Whitefire.
The blow falls on his shield, and shears off the side of it, then strikes the byrnie beneath, but lightly.
Then he entered the cave and set a plain black steel helm upon his black locks, and a black chain byrnie about his breast.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "byrnie" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
