idered a potent spell in some districts against
the powers of evil; and for want of a horse-shoe a bit of a rusty
reaping-hook is supposed to have equal power, "Who were these powers of
evil who could not resist iron--these fairies who shoot STONE arrows,
and are of the foes to the human race? Is all this but a dim, hazy
recollection of war between a people who had iron weapons and a race
who had not--the race whose remains are found all over Europe? If these
were wandering tribes, they had leaders; if they were warlike, they had
weapons. There is a smith in the Pantheon of many nations. Vulcan was
a smith; Thor wielded a hammer; even Fionn had a hammer, which was
heard in Lochlann when struck in Eirinn. Fionn may have borrowed his
hammer from Thor long ago, or both may have got theirs from Vulcan, or
all three may have brought hammers with them from the land where some
primeval smith wielded the first sledge-hammer; but may not all these
'smith-gods be the smiths who made iron weapons for those who fought
with the skin-clad warriors who shot flint-arrows, and who are now
bogles, fairies, and demons? In any case, tales about smiths seem to
belong to mythology, and to be common property."--CAMPBELL, Popular
Tales of the West Highlands, Preface, 74-6.

[19] BROOK, Discovery of Errors in the Catalogue of the Nobility, 198.

[20] MEYRICK, i. 11.

[21] GILBERT, Cornwall.

[22] Before table-knives were invented, in the sixteenth century, the
knife was a very important article; each guest at table bearing his
own, and sharpening it at the whetstone hung up in the passage, before
sitting down to dinner, Some even carried a whetstone as well as a
knife; and one of Queen Elizabeth's presents to the Earl of Leicester
was a whetstone tipped with gold.

[23] The early scarcity of iron in Scotland is confirmed by Froissart,
who says,--"In Scotland you will never find a man of worth; they are
like savages, who wish not to be acquainted with any one, are envious
of the good fortune of others, and suspicious of losing anything
themselves; for their country is very poor. When the English make
inroads thither, as they have very frequently done, they order their
provisions, if they wish to live, to follow close at their backs; for
nothing is to be had in that country without great difficulty. There
is neither iron to shoe horses, nor leather to make harness, saddles,
or bridles: all these things come ready made from Flanders by