234 COLIN CLOUT'S CALENDAR. 



doubt at all about the matter, this stone hatchet, which 

 is thoroughly Euskarian in type, would set the question 

 at rest in a moment. 



But why should I identify this old neolithic weapon 

 with the mythical hammer of the Scandinavian god 

 Thor ? The Euskarians arc separated in our island from 

 the Anglo-Saxons and Danes by all the long interval 

 of British and Roman times. How can a polished 

 hatchet of the later Stone Age have anything to do with 

 the chief deity of a race who peopled Britain a couple 

 of thousand years after the hatchet itself had been safely 

 buried beside the dead chieftain in yonder barrow ? 

 Well, the connection is far closer than one would at 

 first sight be tempted to suppose. We must remember 

 that philology, though it tells us a great deal about the 

 origin of myths, does not tell us everything. Popular 

 superstitions, in fact, do not as a rule gather about 

 language at all, but about certain tangible and material 

 objects, supposed to have a mystical virtue. It may be 

 a crooked sixpence, or a horseshoe, or a bloodstone, or 

 the charms on a watch-chain. It may be a standing 

 stone, or an oak, or a mistletoe bough. It may be Dr. 

 Dee's crystal, or the Lee penny, or the Luck of Eden- 

 hall, or the Stone of Ardvoirloch. But whatever it is, it 

 is usually a definite thing, to be seen and handled by 

 all : something, as a rule, which in some way excites 

 one's curiosity, or suggests by the mode of its occur- 

 rence a supernatural origin. 



Now, objects dug up from the ground, and not 

 known to be of human workmanship, are specially apt 

 to meet with such superstitious reverence. Among 

 them the commonest, in Europe at least, are stone 



