I 



ARROWPOINTS, SPEARHEADS, AND KXIVES. 843 



breast, as they report, which is called the elf's arrow. The cattle doc- 

 tor feels the animal over and over and does not fail to find one or more 

 elf darts in tlie skin. These are placed in water, which is given the 

 creatnre to drink, and the cure is, of course, speedily effected. 



Pennant,' after referring* to the cure of cattle bewitclied by elf shots 

 by making- them drink the water in which an elf arrow has been 

 dipped, adds: 



The same virtue is said to be found in the crystal gems and in tlic adder stone; 

 lor that reason the first is called clach bhuai, or the powerful stone. Capt. Archi- 

 l)ald Campbell showed me one, a spheroid set in silver, for the use of which people 

 came above a hundred miles and brought the water it was to be dipped in with 

 them, for without that in human cases it was believed to have no eftect. 



Pejjys records, on the authority of Dr. Hicks, a circumstantial story 

 of elf arrows with which Lord Tarbut entertained the Duke of Lauder- 

 dale, and he adds : 



I remember my Lord Tarbnt did i)roduce one of these elf arrows, which one of 

 his tenants took out of the heart of one of his cattle that had died an unusual 

 death. 



The feats of the witches of Auldearn furnish some of the most mar- 

 velous narratives in Pitcairns's Criminal Trials. Among other disclos- 

 ures, they describe a cavern in the center of a hill where the archtiend 

 carries on the manufacture of such elf arrows with the help of his 

 attendant imps. The latter perform the preparatory work, shaping 

 the crude blocks and chipping the arrows out of the flint flakes, after 

 which they receive from the master fleud their finishing form and point. 



In Ireland flint arrowheads were regarded as potent spells against 

 the influence of witchcraft and the evil eye, an elf arrow being fre- 

 quently set in silver and worn about the neck as an amulet against 

 being elf-shot. 



We can not err in assuming that at the earliest period of the North- 

 men, exercising an influence in Scotland sufficient to assimilate the 

 popular superstition, the period to which the flint implements pertain 

 was only known as a state of society so different from the historic 

 traditions with which the people were familiar, that they referred its 

 weapons and implements to the same invisible sprites by whose agency 

 they were wont to account for all incomprehensible or sui^erhuman 

 occurrences. And we may infer from what all other evidence confirms, 

 that the close of the Scottish stone period belongs to an era many cen- 

 turies i)rior to the oldest date of the written histor\^ of the country. 



This ancient superstition is not i)eculiar to Scotland and Ireland. 

 In Norway, diseases, not only of cattle but of men, were called by the 

 name "alfshot," and in Denmark, "elveskud" — that is, elf-shot — though 

 the flint arrowpoint is not recognized there as the bolt which furnishes 

 the quivers of malignant elves. But other, and probably more ancient 

 Scandinavian legends prove the existence of similar northern associa- 

 tions with the i)rimitive arrowpoint. 



' Journey in Scotland, I, p. 115. 



