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Originally Posted by Battara
I have seen these with leeches - what is the significance behind the usage of leeches?
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Very hard to say.
Sometimes we can see one ore more faces in a handle, of which the "leeches" representatives the limbs. (Though the limbs more often are represented with "bow's").
Between these "clear" figures the carver used other motifs to "fill the gaps" with no specific representation.
I have the feeling most of the leeches have no significant meaning in general.
Often the representation of the figures, mouth's, eyes, ears, limbs (etc.) are carved so stylistical, that's hard to find out what representatives what (in between other "no representative filled out gaps carvings"), an also these stylistical limbs could be looking like "leeches".
In Charles handle I can't tell what the "leeches" representatives unfortunately because of it's stylistic representation.
Maurice