eople with heads under their shoulders,[218] but it was not up to
inventing such simple touches of nature as these. Bearing this in mind,
let us observe that Thorfinn found the natives of Vinland eager to give
valuable furs[219] in exchange for little strips of scarlet cloth to
bind about their heads. When the Northmen found the cloth growing scarce
they cut it into extremely narrow strips, but the desire of the natives
was so great that they would still give a whole skin for the smallest
strip. They wanted also to buy weapons, but Thorfinn forbade his men to
sell them. One of the natives picked up an iron hatchet and cut wood
with it; one after another tried and admired it; at length one tried it
on a stone and broke its edge, and then they scornfully threw it
down.[220] One day while they were trading, Thorfinn's bull ran out
before them and bellowed, whereupon the whole company was instantly
scattered in headlong flight. After this, when threatened with an attack
by the natives, Thorfinn drew up his men for a fight and put the bull in
front, very much as Pyrrhus used elephants--at first with success--to
frighten the Romans and their horses.[221]

[Footnote 217: It is not meant that stone implements did not
continue to be used in some parts of Europe far into the Middle
Ages. But this was not because iron was not perfectly well
known, but because in many backward regions it was difficult to
obtain or to work, so that stone continued in use. As my
friend, Mr. T. S. Perry, reminds me, Helbig says that
stone-pointed spears were used by some of the English at the
battle of Hastings, and stone battle-axes by some of the Scots
under William Wallace at the end of the thirteenth century.
_Die Italiker in der Poebene_, Leipsic, 1879, p. 42. Helbig's
statement as to Hastings is confirmed by Freeman, _Norman
Conquest of England_, vol. iii. p. 473.]

[Footnote 218: My use of the word "inventing" is, in this
connection, a slip of the pen. Of course the tales of "men
whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders," the Sciopedae,
etc., as told by Sir John Mandeville, were not invented by the
mediaeval imagination, but copied from ancient authors. They may
be found in Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, lib. vii., and were mentioned
before his time by Ktesias, as well as by Hecataeu