gallery of stones.
...]
The heroes of the Northmen in like manner wielded magic swords. Olave
the Norwegian possessed the sword "Macabuin," forged by the dark
smith of Drontheim, whose feats are recorded in the tales of the
Scalds. And so, in like manner, traditions of the supernatural power
of the blacksmith are found existing to this day all over the
Scottish Highlands.*
[footnote...
Among the Scythians the iron sword was a god. It was the image of
Mars, and sacrifices were made to it. "An iron sword," says Mr.
Campbell, really was once worshipped by a people with whom iron was
rare. Iron is rare, while stone and bronze weapons are common, in
British tombs, and the sword of these stories is a personage. It
shines, it cries out -- the lives of men are bound up in it. And so
this mystic sword may, perhaps, have been a god amongst the Celts, or
the god of the people with whom the Celts contended somewhere on
their long journey to the west. It is a fiction now, but it may be
founded on fact, and that fact probably was the first use of iron."
To this day an old horse-shoe is considered a potent spell in some
districts against the powers of evil; and for want of a horse-shoe a
bit of a rusty reaping-hook is supposed to have equal power, "Who
were these powers of evil who could not resist iron--these fairies
who shoot STONE arrows, and are of the foes to the human race? Is all
this but a dim, hazy recollection of war between a people who had
iron weapons and a race who had not--the race whose remains are found
all over Europe? If these were wandering tribes, they had leaders; if
they were warlike, they had weapons. There is a smith in the Pantheon
of many nations. Vulcan was a smith; Thor wielded a hammer; even
Fionn had a hammer, which was heard in Lochlann when struck in