233 



XXXIX. 



TflOR'S HAMMER. 



After a long hunt on a gloomy autumn morning 

 among the prehistoric earthworks which crown the 

 East Cliff, I have come at last across a genuine relic 

 which well repays me for the trouble and discomfort of 

 grubbing in the loose surface-soil amid fog and drizzle. 

 For, unless I mistake, the object which I now hold in 

 my hand, rather grimed with clay and age, but still 

 showing traces of its polished surface through the thick 

 crust of earth, is nothing less than the identical hammer 

 of the great god Thor himself. It is, in fact, a shapely 

 flint axe belonging to the later Stone Age, when men 

 had learned to grind and smooth their tools or weapons ; 

 and it once formed a possession of the ancient Euskarian 

 chief whose remains still lie unmolested in the great 

 barrow which forms the central point of the earthwork. 

 For, though the country people call the rough enclosure 

 ' Cassar's Camp,' an archajological eye recognises at once 

 that its irregular outline could never have belonged to 

 one of the square and symmetrical Roman stations ; 

 while the shape of the barrow, which is long instead of 

 round, shows clearly that it was first erected by the 

 aboriginal stone-using race, not by the later and intru- 

 sive bronze-weaponcd Aryan Celts. If there were any 



