other story cited in Chapter VII.,
who was rescued from Fairyland, could only stay, it will be remembered,
in her master's service so long afterward, as he forebore to strike her
with iron; and the fatal blow was struck accidentally with a bit.[218]

Mr. Andrew Lang has remarked, following Dr. Tylor, that in this taboo
the fairy mistress is "the representative of the stone age." This is so;
and the reason is, because she belongs to the realm of the supernatural.
When the use of metals was discovered, stone implements were discarded
in ordinary life; but for ages afterwards knives of stone were used for
religious purposes. There is evidence, for instance, that the Hebrews,
to seek no further, employed them in some of their sacred rites; an
altar of stone was forbidden to be hewn; and when King Solomon built the
temple, "there was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard
in the house while it was in building." Although there may be no direct
evidence of such a practice among the Cymric Britons, they were probably
no exception to the rule, which seems to have been general throughout
the world; and the Druids' custom of cutting the mistletoe with a
golden, not with an iron, sickle, points in this direction. The
retention of stone instruments in religious worship was doubtless due
to the intense conservatism of religious feeling. The gods, having been
served with stone for so long, would be conceived of as naturally
objecting to change; and the implements whose use had continued through
so many revolutions in ordinary human utensils, would thereby have
acquired a divine character. Changes of religion, however, brought in
time changes even in these usages. Christianity was bound to no special
reverence for knives and arrowheads of flint; but they seem to have been
still vaguely associated with the discarded deities, or their allies,
the Nymphs and Oreads and Fairies of stream or wood or dell, and with
the supernatural generally. A familiar example of this is the name of
Elfbolts given by the country people in this and other lands to these
old-world objects, whenever turned up by the harrow or the spade. Now
the traditional preference on the part of supernatural beings for stone
instruments is only one side of the thought which would, as its reverse
side, show a distinct abhorrence by the same mythical personages for
metals, and chiefly (since we have long passed out of the bronze age)
for iron. Not only do witches a