26 STONE IMPLEMENTS, ETC., IN THE DORSET MUSEUM. 



vii. Next come arrow-heads and lance-heads. To this class of 

 flint implements great interest is attached, and always has been. 

 I said, in speaking of celts, that round them even now hovers a 

 spell, a belief in their possessing occult influences. This is still 

 more true respecting arrow-heads. Of the many extraordinary 

 beliefs connected with them I must mention only one or two. 

 They are called elf-darts. They appear and disappear mysteriously. 

 If you set yourself to search for elf-darts you certainly will not 

 find any. This bit of folklore, however, I think hardly that Mr. 

 Cunningtoii will maintain to be true. Then, again, on the other 

 hand, when you are thinking of anything rather than of elf-darts, 

 lo and behold there is one right under your feet, and where you 

 could make oath that nothing of the sort was lying only a short 

 time before. And, when found, elf-darts are things to keep, 

 having very powerful talismanic virtues. Evans figures one which 

 is set in silver as a charm. A similar one is in the Museum at 

 Palestrina, I am told. As long ago as in ancient Etruscan times 

 this belief in their magic influence existed, it seems. A flint 

 arrow-head forms a central pendant in a necklace of gold beads 

 found in one of the tombs in Tuscany. But, I think, it was 

 chiefly or only in the barbed arrow-heads that the spell was sup- 

 posed to reside. Certainly they are remarkable enough, sometimes 

 beautiful enough, and the mode of making them incomprehensible 

 enough, to account almost for the belief in their being formed by 

 elfin hands, and therefore in their possessing occult qualities. But, 

 in speaking of the Museum specimens (PL I., figs. 2 and 3), it will be 

 best to begin with ruder forms. Very rude, truly, are some of the 

 small chipped flints which antiquaries call, and doubtless truly call, 

 arrow-heads. The Museum contains not a few specimens of this 

 very rough and clumsily contrived sort. But, rough or delicate, 

 the arrow-head was used only locally. This, it is suggested in 

 passing, may some day serve as an argument respecting the races 

 dwelling in this and that part of England. Evans says that in 

 Sussex, where in places flint implements of several kinds are 

 countless, he has never seen a single arrow-head. Here, in Dorset, 



